
Class —FsiA 
Rook .BCS 

Copyright X° 

COWKIGUT UEPOSrr. 



HISTORY 






OF 



ILLINOIS, 



TO ACCOMPANY AN 



HISTORICAL MAP 



OF THE STATE. 



By EUFUS BLANCHAKD. 



CHICAGO : 

NATIONAL SCHOOL FURNISHING COMPANY 

Nos. 34 and 36 Madison Street. 

1883. 




-D 6*3 



COPYKIGHTED: 

By RUFUS BLANCHARD. 
1883. 



PREFACE. 



PREFACE. 



In presenting this work to the Public, and especially to 
the people of Illinois, we are prompted by two motives, one 
to aid the student of to-day in fixing the most notable events 
in the history and development of the State clearly in the 
mind, and the other, still more important, to preserve in con- 
densed form for the future what is known to-day of its his- 
tory. The researches of Mr. Blanchard, partly given in his 
" History of the Northwest," and his " Historical Map of the 
United States," led to this more detailed work on the State of 
Illinois, as the most permanent and desirable form of present- 
ing the valuable data on the history of the State which has 
been gathered by him through years of labor. 

A trite saying, u stick a pin there," as alluding to the estab- 
lishment of a fact and its proper location, has been kept in 
mind in this work, and Mr. Blanchard has stuck pins and 
labeled them all over the State, simplifying and localizing its 
history, so plainly that "he who runs may read." 

THE PUBLISHERS. 



INTRODUCTION. 



INTRODUCTION. 



Two large valleys extend into the innermost centre of a 
continent, and a broad plateau of fertile soil intervenes between 
them. This is Illinois— a connecting link and portage ground 
from one of them to the other. Had it been an arid waste or 
an impregnable mountain uplift, it would have been a barrier 
—a separatrix between them ; but, in the economy of Nature, 
the national interests of Illinois are inseparably connected with 
those of both. 

From its first discovery, the physical geography of this 
country attracted the attention of the French, and their early 
occupation of it shows the importance they attached to it. 
Three nations have contended for possession of it — Spain, 
France and England, but a new nation possesses it by right of 
" manifest destiny." 

To leave her history out of American records would leave an 
unbridged chasm — it would be like cutting off the tap root of 
a tree and leaving its trunk without support. 

When the Jamestown and Plymouth colonies were contend- 
ing with a stubborn soil, their ambitions limited to their daily 
wants, France was laying the dimension stone in the Illinois 
country for the central base of her American empire, and to 
this end she built Ft. Chartres here, the most impregnable 
fortress then known in the Western World. These high hopes 



INTRODUCTION. 



that she then cherished have been realized — not by her, but by 
a new nation, and it is not too much to say that the history of 
Illinois records a past and presages a future that finds a par- 
allel only in the history of the United States, of which it forms 
so important a part, and anything that affects her affects the 
whole. If the centre is jarred, the circumference is shaken. 

Youth of Illinois : You who are to inherit such responsi- 
bilities may laudably feel a State pride which will heighten 
your ambition to do honor to her name. 

THE AUTHOR 
Wheaton, June, 1883. 



AUTHORITIES CONSULTED. 



AUTHORITIES CONSULTED. 



State papers and public documents, the current historic lit- 
erature of the Northwest, and many rare works now out of print 
have been at my command in the preparation of this work. 

But besides all these, I owe lasting obligations to Mr. J. G. 
Shea, of New York, whose contribution cites authorities not 
to be questioned regarding the settlement of Kaskaskia. This 
will confer a favor on many writers who have heretofore been 
in doubt, both as to the date and circumstances attending this 
early settlement and mission ; to Mr. H. W. Beckwith, of 
Danville, 111., whose chapter on the Indian tribes of Illinois, 
with maps accompanying, is compiled from researches of many 
years in this department of the history of our State ; to Mr. 
E. M. Haines, of "Waukegan, 111., whose chapter on the Indian 
names of Illinois will be gratefully received by all who wish to 
retain these examples of the beauty and euphony of the Al- 
gonquin language ; to Mr. Joseph Gillespie, of Edwardsville, 
111., whose contribution on early settlements is made largely 
from his personal knowledge, he having come to the State in 
1819 ; to Mr. Aaron "W. Kellogg, of Springfield, for his article 
on the powers and responsibilities of the State offices, and the 
duties of each department in the present government of the 
State ; to Mr. Milo Erwin, of Marion, for information regard- 
ing the route of General George Rogers Clarke to Kaskaskia 



8 AUTHORITIES CONSULTED. 

and Vincennes ; and, finally, to the many early settlers through- 
out, the State whom I have had the pleasure to meet and con- 
sult, and whose valued aid has enabled me to date and locate 
many events that enhance the value of the work, and in some 
cases establish historical data that might otherwise have been 
lost. 



J AMESTOWN— PLYMOUTH. 



CHAPTER I. 



DISCOVERY. 

The student of history delights in a good foundation on 
which to start to write history, without which, it is like begin- 
ning in the middle of a story. 

Jamestown was the starting place for American National 
History. The men who in 1 607 settled there were loyal to 
English institutions and to everything that was English 
whether it was law, religion or politics. Some of them were 
too lazy to work but not too lazy to fight, some of them could 
do both, all of them were pets of the English Government, and 
subsequently this colony was the first to repel French aggres- 
sion when the territorial issue between France and England 
came up in 1753. 

The settlement of 1620 at Plymouth was the next. The 
men who composed this were essentially different from the 
Jamestown colonists. The sublime principles of English 
liberty to them were no empty name. They meant every thing 
they said, and to them they meant religious as well as civil 
liberty. That they were pioneers in both, the sequel proved, 
for though they were at first a sort of elephant on the hands of 
the crown that it was glad to get rid of, they subsequently led 
the way to reforms and improvements in State affairs that the 
parent government was forced by the progress of civilization 
to adopt. They also laid the foundation of our American in- 
stitutions as they are to day, and the laws of Illinois as well 
as those of all other States of the Union are the fruitage of the 
seed they planted on the coast of Massachusetts, but modified 



10 GULF OF ST. LAWRENCE DISCOVERED. 

to suit the demands of a more practical age, and an age of still 
broader eligious freedom than they ever thought of or would 
have ad ocated. The seed they planted grew into a larger tree 
than the parent plant, and all because the soil of the west was 
richer and its fields larger. Hence the source of the political, 
social, religious and educational laws and customs of Illinois, 
for these grew from the church, the school-house and from 
fireside attractions that make the young and the old love their 
homes. The history of all this is made, interesting by even the 
pictures on the walls of these homes. Our poetry, our romance 
and our drama are based on this history; and even our family 
pride would lose its point if not associated with its grandeur. 

The discovery and exploration of the Illinois Country, as it 
was called at first, forms a chapter in history full of varied 
material for the historic pen. Spain took the lead in American 
discoveries during the reign of Charles V., who was then the 
most powerful monarch of Europe. The large amounts of gold 
brought by his fleets from the new world, stimulated the ambi- 
tion of the French king to participate in western adventures, and 
to this end an expedition was planned to explore its northern 
coast sufficiently remote from the Spanish claims of Florida not 
to come in competition with with them. The command of the 
expedition was given to Jacques Cartier, it sailed from St. Malo 
in the spring of 1534, Charles Y. protested against its sailing 
to make discoveries in the new world which he claimed as the 
heritage of Spain alone, to which Francis the French king re- 
plied " I should like to see the clause in Father Adam's will and 
testament which bequeaths to Spain alone so vast an heritage."* 

The Gulf of St. Lawrence was entered directly after the ar- 
rival of Cartier's fleet and he named it after the Saint whose 
name it bears. The following spring he returned, pushed his 
way up the St. Lawrence river and wintered in the vicinity 
of Quebec among the Indians who entertained their new guests 
with the best they had. As soon as navigation opened the 

*Graham's Colonial History. 



QUEBEC SETTLED. 11 

next spring Cartier returned to France and reported what he 
had seen. 

The great highway to the interior had been opened to view, 
but it appeared like a barren discovery for it was not then 
known what laid beyond the rock-clad headlands of the St. 
Lawrence, and it was not till 1608 that the French colonized 
their possessions on its banks. This was done under King 
Henry IV. by Samuel de Champlain at Quebec. Here began 
on the waters of the St. Lawrence the work of exploration 
destined to bring to light the entire Valley of the Mississippi 
to which it was at that time the only avenue, for the Spanish 
guarded the Gulf of Mexico with a jealous eye, and to have ap- 
proached the interior across the country would not have been 
allowed by the Five Nations or Iroquois, who then held the 
intervening country between it and the Hudson river as far 
south as the Allegheny mountains. 

Champlain established French authority at Quebec and as soon 
as the natural obstacles to further explorations would admit of it 
French missionaries and French fur traders pushed forward 
into the interior and established forts and mission houses. 
In 1615 Champlain himself on a tour of exploration discovered 
Lake Huron and named it after a tribe of Indians on its shores. 

In 1641 French missionaries h'ad reached the outlet of Lake 
Superior, and in 1658 traders had reached its western extrem- 
ity and made the acquaintance of the Sioux — the same war- 
like nation whose descendants, under their chief Sitting Bull, 
overwhelmed the army of General Custer among the Black 
Hills in 1877, killing all but one of them. From them the 
first tidings of " the great river that flowed southward to the 
sea," came to the French. This information stimulated their 
zeal to explore it. and to this end Father Marquette, a priest, 
and Joliet, a trader, under patronage of Talon, Intendent 
of Canada while Frontenac was Governor, started with two 
canoes and five service men from the mission of St. Ignace, 
opposite the island of Macinac. Holding their course along the 



12 DISCOVERT OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 

northern shore of Lake Michigan, they soon entered the waters 
of Green Bay, and arriving at its head they rested a short time 
at the mission of St. Francis Xavier, which had been estab- 
lished four years previously. From this outermost limit of 
French occupation they took their final departure from the 
abodes of civilization into the great unknown wilderness before 
them. By the advice of the Indians they were directed into 
the path which led to the elbow in the Wisconsin river at the 
present site of Portage. Here they launched their two bark 
canoes into the river and continued" on their way till its mouth 
was reached in the rolling surges of the Mississippi, whose 
turbulent waters contrasted strangely with the Wisconsin, 
which held its quiet course sometimes under the brow of a 
precipice and sometimes in a deep channel through prairie 
sand-bars. Marquette was delighted with the discovery of 
" the great river," then without a name, and he christened it 
the Conception Eiver in honor of his patron saint, " the 
Blessed Virgin." The discovery was made on the 17th of 
June, 1073. Down its current the travelers passed through 
the great amplitude of wild nature that spread out in limitless 
prairies on either side, and on which countless herds of buffalo 
found pasturage. No signs of human life had yet been seen 
in the immense country through which they had passed since 
they left the mission house at Green Bay, but on their arrival 
at the mouth of the Des Moines river human foot-prints were 
discovered on its banks. 

This excited the explorers, especially Marquette, whose chief 
object was to bring the light of the gospel to new nations, 
while that of Joliet was to open a way for French alliances 
with the inhabitants of the country, with an ultimate view of 
occupying it jointly with the natives after they had been con- 
verted to Christianity under the teaching of the missionaries. 
The loving relations between the French and the Indians were 
always consistent with this theory, but fortune in the future 
had a different fate in store for both. The footprints seen by 



DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 13 

the explorers were followed, and after two leagues three Indian 
villages were seen on the banks of the Des Moines. They 
were of the Peoria tribe of the Illinois Indians, and now an 
interview between the French and these tribes is about to 
take place. Soon as the approach of the strangers had at- 
tracted the attention of the villagers, four chiefs advanced to 
meet them. "Who are you?" called out Marquette in Algon- 
quin dialect. " We are Illini," replied one of their chiefs. 
This word in their language meant men, and therefore the 
word Illini was not intended to be understood in a generic 
sense by them, but as significant of the humane intentions 
which they vouchsafed towards their distinguished guests, and 
which profession they never dishonored in their future inter- 
course with them They also intended by this reply to dis- 
tinguish themselves from the Iroquois, whom they stigmatized 
as beasts on account of their cruel modes of warfare, the force of 
which they had felt. A pleasant interview followed, in which 
the Indians entertained their visitors with the best varieties of 
food their hands could prepare, among which the " delicious " 
dog meat was not forgotten. The rest was made up of buffalo 
meat, fish and hominy. 

Marquette never lost an opportunity to advocate Christianity 
to his savage hearers, and on this occasion told them of the 
crucifixion of Christ and the plan of salvation, all of which 
was politely received by his untutored audience, whose desire 
to cultivate the good will of the French was stimulated by fear 
of the Iroquois, from whose invasions they looked to them for 
protection. 

With friendship on both sides the explorers took their leave 
the next morning, which was the 25th of June, and continued 
their course down the river. 

On arriving at the mouth of the Ohio, a roving band of 
Indians were met. They were armed with guns, probably 
obtained from the English colonists. A few pleasant courte- 
sies were exchanged with them, and the travelers passed on 



14 DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 

and were soon buried in the gloomy forests ot cotton wood 
that shadow the banks of this river in its immensity below the 
mouth of the Ohio — majestic in its monotony and grand in 
its solitude. 

Through these silent realms they made their way along with 
the current to the vicinity of the Arkansas river, where the 
scene changed. Here was life again, and a different people. 
The young men assailed them with their war clubs, but hap- 
pily the old men came to the rescue in time to prevent any 
damage by ordering a suspension of hostilities. Pending this 
new danger, Marquette presented the calumet and called upon 
the Holy Virgin to protect them, and in his devotion gave to 
her all the glory for their deliverance. 

A friendly interview followed, and the explorers were con- 
ducted with much ceremony to the houses of the natives and 
feasted with fish and hominy, the dishes from which they ate 
being earthenware of native manufacture. The night was 
spent among them, though not without misgivings as to the 
abiding character of the hastily improvised friendship which 
these southern tribes had made up. 

The ever-ready gospel was dispensed to them through an in- 
terpreter who understood the Illinois tongue in which Mar- 
quette addressed his passionless audience, and the next day, 
which was the 19th of July, the explorers started on their 
return. 

From what they had already seen, they were convinced that 
the u great river " emptied into the Gulf of Mexico, and to go 
farther would be exceedingly dangerous, not only from the In- 
dians, but from Spanish explorers who might be encountered 
on the lower waters of the river. 

Constant toiling at the oar in a few weeks brought them to 
the mouth of the Illinois river, into which they entered and 
kept up the stream till the village of the Kaskaskias, near the 
present site of Utica, was reached. Here they were again re- 
ceived with true Illinois friendship of no doubtful character. 



DISCOVERY OF THE CIIICAGOU PORTAGE. 15 

After the inevitable feast of sagamite (hominy), added to which 
was the equally inevitable blessing of the pions missionary, the 
journey was again resumed under an escort of Indian guides 
who volunteered to accompany the Frenchmen to the Chicagou 
portage. Twas in the month of September when they arrived 
at the place, then a broad waste of grass and prairie flowers, 
channeled by two lazy streams that met from opposite direc- 
tions and, united, flowed, or rather formed a connection, with 
the lake. This was Chicago as nature made it and as these 
men, who were unquestionably its first discoverers, saw it. The 
Indians and the Frenchmen here parted company, the former 
starting back to their home, and the latter coasting along the 
west bank of Lake Michigan toward Canada. On arriving at 
a point opposite the mission of St. Francis Xavier, Marquette, 
being sadly in need of rest, in consequence of sickness, took 
refuge at the mission-house, while Joliet continued on his route 
to Canada to report what the two had discovered to Frontenac, 
the governor. On the 25th of the following October, Father 
Marquette was partially recovered from his malady, and set out 
on a return trip to visit the Kaskaskia village on the Illinois 
river. Two young Frenchmen, Pierre and Jacques, and a del- 
egation of Indians sufficiently numerous to fill ten canoes, ac- 
companied him. Their route was across a narrow neck of land 
intervening between the head of Green Bay and Lake Michi- 
gan by a portage, thence along the shore of the lake to the 
Chicago river. 

' Twas the 4th of December when he arrived at this then 
desolate portage. The river was sheeted over with ice, which 
suspended canoe navigation, but what was far more unfortun- 
ate, the Father was again prostrated by a return of his malady. 
To proceed was impossible, and to remain at the comfortless 
place was a grievous, but the only alternative. 

A cabin was built, probably on the south ranch of the 
Chicago river towards its source, which at that time was what 
has since been called Mud Lake. This lake was a succession 



16 DEATH OF MARQUETTE. 

of sloughs connecting with the Desplaines river, and forming 
good canoe navigation all the way in high water, but during 
the summer months was drained of its surplus waters and left 
a stagnant pool. The two faithful companions of the invalid 
did their best to keep him comfortable as far as the hasty cabin 
which they made for him could do it. The Father kept a 
journal, and from it we learn that roving bands of Indians 
sometimes visited him and brought game, and that not far 
distant a trader had recently established a post, and he some- 
times brought such succor to the missionary as the wilderness 
afforded. 

Winter did not break till late in March, on the 30th of 
which month, says the journal, the ground on which the cabin 
stood was overflowed by an excessive rain, and they were forced 
to leave the spot for a more elevated one. The last item on 
his journal bears date of April 6th, and two days later he was 
at the Kaskaskia village, near where Utica now stands, from 
which it would appear that the freshet had carried the canoe 
in winch thev traveled rapidly to the place. 

Here the devout missionary exerted himself to his utmost 
limit to establish a mission among the Illinois tribes, who ap- 
pear to have won his solicitude from the first. He named the 
mission The Immaculate Conception, and spent his last vital 
energies in it to bring to the understanding of his willing but 
unteachabie hearers the Christian plan of salvation. 

Alter remaining a few days with his savage flock, he felt 
that he could barely survive long enough to reach Canada, and 
he with his companions started on their return. They chose 
iheir route along the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. On 
arriving at the place now known as Sleeping Bear Point, he 
died at their place of encampment on the shore, and was buried 
by his attendants. The next year his remains were disinterred 
by a hand of Indians, carried to the Missioii of Saint Ignace, 
just opposite Mackinaw, and buried beneath the chapel with 
impressive ceremony. In 1877 an attempt was made to dis- 



Marquette's remains. 17 

cover his bones, which resulted in finding two of them only.* 
The record of his discovery of the Mississippi will be as en- 
during as our literature. It forms the opening chapter of our 
State history, and cannot fade into oblivion as long as our na- 
tion lasts. 

* Blanchard's Northwest, Chap. I. 



18 LA SALLE. 



CHAPTER II. 



THE FRENCH IN ILLINOIS. 

When Joliet parted from Marquette at Green Bay, as told 
in the foregoing chapter, he kept on his route towards Canada, 
stopping' on the way at Fort Frontenac, at the outlet of Lake 
Ontario. Here he met Robert de La Salle, who held com- 
mand of the place. Already he had distinguished himself by 
hi£ discovery of the Ohio river five years previously, and it is 
hardly to be doubted that the two explorers conferred together 
as to the geography of the country, and especially as to the 
new discovery of the Mississippi, of which Joliet had ample 
notes and maps, just made by himself, while treading the first 
pathway made by white men through the interior. 

After leaving Fort Frontenac, Joliet had the misfortune to 
lose all the records of his discovery by the upsetting of his 
canoe in the St. Lawrence river, just above Montreal, and 
through the delay occasioned by this accident, or some other 
cause not now known, no official account of his discovery was 
published till 1681, at which date it appeared on Thevenot's 
map, issued at Paris, and reproduced by various others since. 
Marquette drew a map of the " Conception river," together 
with the outlines of the lakes, which was a marvel of accuracy 
considering the material he had to work with. It has been 
republished by Shea, and copied from his reprint by many 
others. The original is now in St. Mary's College, Montreal. 

After the interview between Joliet and La Salle, the latter 
at once determined to utilize the work so auspiciously begun 
by extending the exploration of the Mississippi to its mouth, 



THE GRIFFIN. 19 

and ultimately establishing a colony there. The St. Lawrence 
valley, the lake country, and the entire valley of the Missis- 
sippi were but the limits of his ambition. On these France 
was to be reproduced in the New World, and the Illinois 
country was to be the central base of operations wherewith to 
accomplish these designs. The first step to be taken in this 
direction was to secure a foothold at the eastern extremity of 
Lake Erie by building a fort at the place. 

The Senecas, an Iroquois tribe, held this country at the 
time, and it required no small amount of persuasion, accom- 
panied with several " fathoms of tobacco " and other presents, 
to overcome the misgivings of these Indians as to the policy 
of allowing the fort to be built, but La Salle was equal to the 
emergency, obtained their consent, and built the fort in 1678, 
at the mouth of the Niagara river. 

The next year he built a vessel above the falls and named it 
The Griffin. She was launched early in the spring, and in 
the following summer was loaded with her cargo, which con- 
sisted of a forge, ship carpenter's tools, and the iron work for 
a vessel to be built on the banks of the Illinois river. With 
this vessel La Salle intended to go down the Mississippi river 
to its mouth, and there establish a colony with which to hold 
the whole country drained by its waters. 

With this design he set sail in the Griffin on the 7th of 
August, 1679.^ Thirty-four men joined him, most of whom 
were those enlisted in his service. Tonty, his faithful lieu- 
tenant, and four priests, prominent among whom was Henne- 
pin, were included in the number. The vessel safely arrived 
at Green Bay, where her cargo was unloaded and transferred 
to small boats, thence to be transported to the Illinois river 
with the men, while the Griffin was loaded with a cargo of 
furs and sent back to the place from whence she came. 

At thai; time there were two traveled routes from the Illi- 
nois river country to Lake Michigan, both of which were older 
than history. One was by the way of the Desplaines and 



20 FORT CKEVE CCEUR. 

Chicago rivers, between which was a portage of about nine 
miles, except in very high water, at which time Mud Lake 
connected the two. The other was by the way of the St. 
Joseph river to the elbow where South Bend, Indiana, now is, 
thence by a portage to the source of the Kankakee river, and 
down it to the Illinois. La Salle chose the latter, and, after 
much detention by storm, he with his whole force arrived at 
the broadening of the Illinois river, where Peoria now is, 
about the first of January, 1680. Time was precious with 
him, and it was important that he should set about his work 
immediately. But before it could be begun, consent from the 
Indians to build a fort must be obtained, and consent to build 
a vessel was equally necessary before the work could safely be 
attempted. This was readily obtained from the pliant Illi- 
nois, and the work was begun. The fort, which was only a 
stockade of logs, was soon finished, and this was the first thing 
done on the soil of Illinois with a view to permanent occupa- 
tion. It was situated on the eastern bank of the river, at the 
southern extremity of Peoria Lake, and named Fort Creve 
Cceur — Broken Heart. It was probably so named to memorize 
the hardships that had crossed the path of La Salle while con- 
centrating his force and materials at this spot in the depths of 
a continent. 

The keel was laid for the intended vessel near by the fort, 
but before work on it had advanced far, some of his men de- 
serted, partly for want of pay, and, perhaps, partly through a 
disposition to cut loose from restraint in the broad creation of 
savage freedom then omnipresent in the Illinois country. 
This unlooked for hindrance made it necessary to suspend 
work on the vessel, but the end in view was not lost sight of, 
and La Salle determined to return to Canada to enlist a fresh 
force of men. 

On the first of March he started with five companions, one 
of whom was an Indian. Winter still hung over the country, 
and the small streams were not yet released from its icy grasp, 



HEROISM OF TONTY. 21 

and when the travelers had reached the upper tributaries of 
the Illinois river the canoes by which they came had to be 
abandoned, and all their supplies, including camp outfits, 
packed on their shoulders. When the western extremity of 
Lake Erie was reached, a canoe was made with which to per- 
form the rest of their journey by water, and in it La Salle and 
one of the men embarked, alter sending the other four up the 
Detroit to Michilimacinac to rest, for they were spent with 
fatigue and sickness. La Salle arrived at v Fort Frontenac on 
the 6th of May. While he had been painfully toiling on foot 
through the oozy savannas of the forest to reach Canada for 
new recruits of men, disasters had been accumulating at the 
base of his operations in the front. Soon after his departure 
nearly the whole remaining force not only deserted but dis- 
mantled the fort and threw its contents into the river. This 
was done during the temporary absence of Tonty, whom he 
had left in command. Only six of the entire force had re- 
mained faithful, two of whom were priests. With these the 
heroic Tonty put forth his best efforts to inspire the respect of 
his savage companions till the return of La Salle to carry out 
his projects, for it was essential to his success to retain a foot- 
hold here. The deserters had done their worst, and the sum- 
mer passed in the listless inaction of Indian communities 
when there is nothing to do but to cultivate a patch of corn, 
but on the 10th of September, sudden as a clap of thunder in 
a clear sky, came an Iroquois invasion. By a happy chance 
this advancing army had been espied in the distance at least a 
day's inarch away, and the news was carried in hot haste by 
fleet-footed runners to the Illinois village. 

They were in no condition to defend themselves, but Tonty, 
who was their friend, just before the battle took it upon him- 
self to act the part of a mediator, and even after the skirmish- 
ing had begun, interposed between the two armies and ad- 
vanced into the Iroquois camp. 



22 IROQUOIS INVASION. 

The battle was suspended by this daring act, and the furious 
warriors gathered around him, some bent on killing him, while 
others, more considerate, lent an ear to his proposals. In vain 
he put forth his efforts to intimidate the haughty warriors by 
exaggerating the force of his allies, they were not to be balked 
of their prey, and Tonty was allowed to retire, but bleeding 
with a wound whicli a faithless warrior had given him in a fit 
of rage at his effrontery. 

It was evident to Tonty that the Illinois would be worsted 
in the encounter, and inasmuch as his presence would not save 
them, he with his five companions started for the mission 
house at Green Bay. The Illinois fled down the river before 
their foes, leaving everything they possessed behind, the most 
valuable part of which was their corn. This was destroyed by 
the ruthless invaders, who then returned to their hunting 
grounds — the present State of New York — taking with them 
a large number of female prisoners who fell into their hands 
as the spoils of war. These were promptly adopted into 
their tribe as supernumerary wives for the warriors of the 
expedition. 

At the first night's encampment of Tonty's party, Father 
Ribourde strolled away a short distance for prayer and medi- 
tation, when a renegade band of Kickapoos killed him, per- 
haps to win his scalp to dangle from one of their belts as an 
ornament, added to which might be the sacred cross of the 
Father desecrated into an Indian trinket. 

Tonty's party reached their destination after the loss of 
Ribourde, but not without hardships and starvation, that taxed 
their endurance to its utmost limit, and here the discomfited 
fugitives rested for the winter. 

La Salle had been successful in raising new recruits for his 
enterprise, and in his haste to reach the Illinois country had, 
with seven companions, pushed forward in advance, while the 
heavy material was being transported by the main body. 



SUCCESS OF LA SALLE. 23 

On arriving at the Illinois village, instead of an expected 
greeting from friends, the scene of the late destruction that had 
again thwarted his plans opened before him in dumb silence. 

There were no signs of human life there, but when night 
came the yelps of wolves quarreling over the spoils of the 
battle-field broke harshly upon its silence. Meantime the fate 
of Tonty hung in painful suspense, but as no trace of his body 
could be found among the ruins, hope partially relieved fear 
that he was among the slain. 

La Salle with his party now retraced their steps to Fort 
Miamis, at the mouth of the St. Joseph river, where he met 
his advancing men, and here they all spent the winter. 

The next spring La Salle set about the accomplishment of 
his plans. Instead of a vessel, canoes were to be used, manned 
with Frenchmen and Indian allies. The preparations for even 
this simple mode of transportation required the whole sum- 
mer and the following autumn. 

The Indian tribes had to be conciliated, and an alliance 
formed between the Miamias and the Illinois for mutual pro- 
tection against the Iroquois, which, strengthened by French 
alliance, satisfied the Western tribes, and they all acquiesced 
in La Salle's plans. 

The mouth of the St. Joseph river was the place of rendez- 
vous, and late in December had gathered there a convention of 
Indians, from whom La Salle selected 18, who, added to his 23 
Frenchmen, made a force of 41 men ; but among the Indians 
were 10 of their wives and three children, a requisition on the 
part of the red volunteers that La Salle did not see fit to dis- 
allow, though such an incumbrance must have been distasteful 
to him. 

Tonty, who had been heard from and summoned to the spot, 
led the advance, starting on the 21st of December along the 
southern shore of Lake Michigan. The " Chicagou " route 
had been determined on as the most direct, on arriving at 
which place the river was found to be frozen over. But little 



24 I. A SALLE AT THE MOUTH OF THE MISSISSIPPI 

detention was caused by this, for Tonty set his men at work 
making sledges for transportation ; and canoes, baggage, pap- 
pooses and camp equipage were loaded on them and hauled 
by the men rapidly over river and portage, till open water was 
reached on the Illinois. Here the sledges were abandoned 
and the canoe flotilla launched, which was to bear its diversi- 
fied crew to distant and unknown lands, there to take posses- 
sion of a destined French empire. 

It arrived at the mouth of the Mississippi April 6, 1682, 
and here a large cross was erected and a plate of lead buried 
beside it, as monuments of French possession of the Missis- 
sippi valley. Prayers, chants and shouts followed, in which 
latter the guttural jargon of the Indians was mingled, prob- 
ably with as little sense of the situation as the roaring of the 
sea that rolled its surges against this lonesome solitude. The 
country was named Louisiana, in honor of Louis XVI., and 
the explorers left the historic spot to tug their way up the cur- 
rent of the Mississippi. 

On their arrival at the Illinois country, Tonty was consti- 
tuted governor of it by La Salle, and now began the official 
line of organized government here, though there was nothing 
to govern at the time except a few zealous priests, who needed 
no restraint, and a large number of Indians whom no legal 
forms could restrain, added to whom were a score of fur- 
traders, untractable and lawless as birds of passage, and almost 
as transient in their erratic wanderings. 

The first thing to do was to build a fort, without which no 
un rhority could exist even in form The site for this was 
chosen on what is now the summit of Starved Rock, near 
Utica, on the Illinois river. This was done in December, 
1682, and christened Fort St. Louis It proved a refuge of 
safety, around which the Illinois tribes gathered with confi- 
dence, and again the rich valleys which its heights overlook 
swarmed with Indian life, bidding defiance to Iroquois inva- 
sion from under the guns of French allies. 



FRENCH AND ENGLISH RIVALKY. 25 

The cause of these invasions grew out of English rivalry m 
the fur trade. Dongan, the colonial governor of New York, 
furnished the Iroquois with the material wherewith to make 
them, and these defiant warriors were ever ready to do his bid- 
ding, for they were dependent on the English for guns and 
ammunition as well as many rude implements of civilization, 
of which they had been taught the use.* In like manner such 
Indians as were in alliance with the French espoused their 
cause against the English, and often made hostile incursions 
from Canada into the frontier English settlements adjacent. 
Governor Dongan's headquarters were at Albany, and from 
here he sent out men to intercept the trade of the French along 
the lakes, for even in this early day the Western trade was a 
coveted prize between the French of the St. Lawrence and the 
English of the Hudson river. This trade has now multiplied 
a thousand fold in value, and is chiefly secured to the Ameri- 
cans by the Erie canal and the various railroads that connect 
Illinois with the Atlantic seaboard. 

On the return of La Salle to the Illinois country after his 
exploration of the Mississippi, he learned with painful regrets 
that Frontenac had been recalled from the governorship of 
Canada, and La Barre put in his place. He was no friend to 
La Salle, but, on the contrary, an enemy. He used his official 
authority against him by stopping all supplies from Canada 
intended for the Illinois country, which had now become the 
base of operations of the French in the interior, from which 
advances could be made to carry out any designs of French 
aggrandizement in the valley of the Mississippi, and if only a 
moderate effort could be made to keep a few men there sup- 
plied with ammunition, the trading interests would take care 
of themselves and bring a revenue to the French crown. 

In vain La Salle besought the new Governor to sustain him in 
carrying out this policy. He was impervious to his entreaties, 
and sneered at his labors and his plans as worse than useless. 
*Doc. Hist, of New York. 



26 LA SALLE IN TEXAS. 

La Salle now determined to go to France and make an ap- 
peal to the king, and with this resolution left the Illinois- 
country late in the autumn of 1683 for Canada. On his way- 
he met a delegation from La Barre, under command of De 
Baugis, armed with authority to assume command of Fort St. 
Louis, and act as governor of the country. Tonty submitted 
to his authority, and there appears to have been a good under- 
standing between him and the new governor. Tonty, with 
his characteristic force and courage, repelled an Iroquois inva- 
sion which soon followed, although he was without official 
authority. 

La Salle sailed for France, reached the ear of the king, and 
through the influence of his friends, together with his own 
force of purpose, secured the royal favor. 

Now the tables were turned. Tonty was restored to the 
governorship of the Illinois country, and La Salle himself was 
put in command of a fleet to sail for the mouth of the Missis- 
sippi and establish a French colony at the place. By mistake 
the fleet landed at Metagorda Bay, on the coast of Texas. 
Here the ill-fated colony languished for two years, at which 
time they were almost exhausted by disease and death, and 
La Salle formed the resolution of going back to the Illinois 
country to obtain succor. Selecting a few hardy companions 
he started, but was assassinated by one of his own men on the 
banks of the Trinity river. Seven of his party reached the 
Illinois in safety, but the hapless colony all perished in their 
forlorn hermitage. Tonty meantime held command at his 
post, protecting French interests there and establishing an 
authority which, but for the fortunes of the French and Indian 
war of the next century, would have made Illinois a French 
State, subject to a French king. The French settlements of 
Southern Illinois were permanent, and were the first substan- 
tial results of the foregoing discoveries and explorations. 
Much uncertainty has hitherto existed as to the date of the 
commencement of these settlements, but the following para- 



SETTLEMENT OF KASKASKIA. 27 

graph which Mr. J. G. Shea has given to the writer will settle 
the question: 

" THE MISSION OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION AMONG THE 

KASKASKIAS." 

" This mission dates from September, 1673, when Father 
Marquette visited the Kaskaskias at their town on the upper 
Illinois river. It- bore the name Kaskaskia, and consisted of 
sixty-nine cabins.* 

" It was on the Illinois river, about six miles below the 
mouth of the Fox river. j- Having promised to return and 
establish a mission among them, he set out in November, 
1674, wintered at Chicago, and on Easter, 1675, reached Kas- 
kaskia, beginning the mission under the name of the Immacu- 
late Conception. £ Finding his malady increasing, he en- 
deavored to reach Macinac, but died on the way. Father 
Claude AUouez renewed the mission April 27th, 1677, and 
continued it till La Salle's expedition reached Illinois. The 
Recollects began a mission at Fort Creve Coeur, but none at 
Kaskaskia, and the mission there soon closed. Allouez sub- 
sequently returned, and was succeeded in 1690 by Father 
James Gravier, who established the mission on a firm basis 
about 1693.|| 

" When the French began a settlement at the mouth of the 
Mississippi in 1699, several northern tribes prepared to .go 
down and settle there. The Kaskaskias went to the Missis- 
sippi in 1700, but were induced to wait and settle at the pres- 
ent Kaskaskia. ^[ The miss ion and town retained the old name. 

" THE MISSION AT CAHOKIA AND TAMAROA. 

"This mission was founded about 1700 by Father Francis 
Pinet, but the next year the mission was transferred from the 

*Discovery of the Mississippi, p. 51. 
fLe Clercque, Vol. II, p. 117. 
^Discovery of the Mississippi, p. 56. 
HGravier's Relation, 1693. 
IfGravier's Journal du Voyage. 



28 FORT CHAKTRES. 

Jesuits to priests sent from the seminary of Quebec. Rev. 
Mr. Burgur was the first. After a time they confined them- 
selves to the care of the French settlers and left the Indians to 
the Jesuits.* The Quebec priests remained at Tamaroa till 
the fall of French power." 

Not long after the settlements of Kaskaskia and Cahokia, 
the circumstances of which have just been told by Mr. Shea, 
other French towns were established near by them, altogether 
constituting a thriving settlement midway between Canada 
and the settlements at the mouth of the Mississippi river. To 
protect them Fort Chart res was built, being finished in 1720. 
It was at that time the strongest fort in North America. 
Some relics of it still remain as a monument of French power 
in Illinois, but part of it has been undermined by the wearing 
away of the river bank, while much of the stone of which it 
was originally built has been appropriated for private use. No 
hostile shot was ever fired against its walls, and if French 
power had been as invulnerable against attack at her outermost 
limits as at this place, she would have remained the great 
power in America till political revolution had wrought what 
foreign foes were unable to do. 

*Shea's Catholic Mission, pp. 421-2. 



THE OHIO COMPANY. 29 



CHAPTER III. 



ILLINOIS UNDER ENGLISH RULE. 

From the previous chapter it is seen that French posses- 
sions in America extended from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to 
the Gulf of Mexico, including in its still but partially ex- 
plored territory the whole country drained by the St. Law- 
rence and Mississippi rivers. 

The English colonies were then confined to a narrow belt 
of land along the Atlantic coast, insignificant in size compared 
to the French possessions. 

As each of these nationalities increased in numbers and ex- 
tended their settlements, the boundary question between them 
came up, and increased in importance till the frontier occupa- 
tion of the questionable territory by the two rival nations 
brought their interests in collision with each other. 

This rivalry took place on the headwaters of the Ohio river, 
the first exciting cause of which was the formation of the 
Ohio Company, under a grant from the English crown. This 
grant was obtained by Mr. Hanbury, of London, for a tract of 
country within the present limits of the State of Ohio. The 
company was composed of eight associates, of whom Law- 
rence, Augustine and George Washington were three. Meas- 
ures were taken by the Ohio Company to occupy these lands 
by commencing to build a fort where Pittsburg now stands, 
but the men thus employed were driven away by a large force 
of French and Indians, and this was the beginning of the 
French and Indian war. 



30 FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR. 

The contest lasted from 1754 to 1759. It involved nearly 
the whole of Europe in its struggle, for its issue was entangled 
with the old question as to the balance of power on the conti- 
nent. The Indian tribes of Canada, and those along the lakes 
and the Ohio river, as well as the Iroquois of the New York 
colony and the Delawares of the Susquehanna, were all on the 
war-path to help settle this question, which was the most mo- 
mentous one the world had yet seen, as the result has shown. 

Wolfe's victory on the heights of Abraham, Sept. 13th, 
1759, was the last and the decisive battle which settled it. 
By the fiat of war the boundary line between the French 
and English possessions in America was established on the 
Mississippi instead of the Ohio river, and all the territory 
east of this boundary, as far south as the Spanish possessions 
of Florida, and the French settlements on the east bank of the 
Mississippi south of the thirty-first parallel, fell into English 
hands, according to the definitive treaty of peace which ter- 
minated the war. The preliminary treaty, of which the de- 
finitive one was the substance, was executed between General 
Amherst, commander of the English forces, and M. de Yan- 
dreuil, French Governor of Canada, bearing date at Montreal, 
September 8th, 1760. As soon as it was signed the English 
proceeded to take possession of the immense country ac- 
quired by it as fast as it could be done. To do this was a 
work of no small magnitude, as the sequel proved. 

The entire native population of the country had learned to 
love the French during generations of harmonious relations 
with them, and they had fought on their side during the late 
war. Not an Englishman had then settled northwest of the 
Ohio river; the Indians held the whole country with a tena- 
cious grip, and had no, even distant fear, that the English would 
ever be able to dispossess them of it. They were willing to 
harbor them as traders, but that was all. 

On the 29th of November, 1760, Detroit was tanen posses- 
sion of by the English under Major Kobert Rogers. The next 



PONTIAC. 31 

summer Michilimacinac, Ste. Maria, at the outlet of Lake Su- 
perior, Green Bay, St. Joseph and Sandusky, were also taken 
possession of by the English. These were all the places where 
the French held posts in the conquered country which had not 
fallen into the hands of the English during the war, except 
Vincennes and Fort Ouatanon, on the Wabash, and the clus- 
ter of French towns in Southern Illinois. Neither of these 
two latter places, in their distant remoteness from the scenes 
of the late war, had been even threatened with invasion. Bnt 
before any steps had been taken to establish English rule over 
them, the western tribes, under Pontiac, determined to drive 
the English from the new posts they had already occupied. 
With this end in view a secret conspiracy was planned by 
Pontiac, and a simultaneous attack made upon each, resulting 
in the capture of all of them except Detroit and Fort Pitt 
(Pittsburg). The Indians now reigned triumphant through- 
out the entire northwest, and kept up the siege of Detroit 
under Pontiac, their great leader, till August 26th, 1TG3, 
when the arrival of General Bradstreet with a large force re- 
lieved the place and dispersed the red assailants who had 
closely pressed the garrison for over a year, and reduced them 
to the verge of starvation. 

Fort Pitt was also besieged, but not so closely, till General 
Bouquet relieved the place during the same month It now 
only remained to take possession of the French settlements of 
the Illinois country, and Vincennes on the Wabash, to fulfill 
the provisions of the treaty at the termination of the French 
and Indian war. 

Four years had elapsed since the date of this preliminary 
treaty, and the time seemed as distant as ever when the Eng- 
lish could venture into the country with safety, especially as 
an immense domain of forest intervened between it and their 
settlements along the Atlantic coast. The first attempt to do 
this was to send a force up the Mississippi river, for the les- 
son taught by the bloody experience of the late war with Pon- 



32 ST. ANGE. 

tiac had taught General Gage, the British officer now in com- 
mand of America, a due degree of caution, and he did not 
deem it practicable to send a force so far into wilds filled with 
Indians of still doubtful friendship. Accordingly a force of 
300 men under Major Loftus was dispatched from Bayou 
Manchae, an English post on the Gulf of Mexico, to ascend 
the Mississippi in barges to the French settlements in the Illi- 
nois country. While laboring against the current on his way, 
he was suddenly attacked by the Tonica Indians, who poured 
a volley of shot among his men first from one side of the river 
and then from the other, and he beat a retreat down stream, 
abandoning farther attempts to reach the place in question. 

The situation was now complicated in the extreme. Pon- 
tiac, though driven from the field, was still a power among the 
Indian tribes of the interior, with whom the French of South- 
ern Illinois were on the best of terms, through motives of both 
policy and friendship. 

After being driven from Detroit, Pontiac had taken refuge 
at the French villages of the Illinois, over whom the discreet 
and benevolent St. Ange still exercised an authority both of- 
ficial and paternal. To him Pontiac applied for succor to pro- 
long the fight. It would not do to offend the fallen chieftain, 
nor would it do to grant his request, and the governor was at 
his wit's end for a ruse to get out of the dilemma ; still he 
managed, by dint of much circumspection, to preserve the 
friendship of the importunate representative of Indian inter- 
ests without allying the French to his hopeless cause. 

Pending these years of suspense French traders were driv- 
ing a profitable business in buffalo hides and peltries, for 
which merchandise they found a ready market at St. Louis 
and New Orleans. This increased the difficulties of carrying 
out the provisions of the treaty, for when the English flag 
should float over the ramparts of Fort Chartres, English mer- 
chants would succeed French, and trade would seek an outlet 
by the way of the lakes instead of down the river. Of so 



GEOKGE CROGAN. 33 

much importance was the question, of commercial rivalry be- 
tween the French of New Orleans and the English of Detroit, 
that Sir William Johnson, Superintendent of Indian Affairs, 
was instructed by the London Board of Trade to take early 
and effectual measures to secure the trade of the Illinois.* He 
had in his employ at this time an able officer named George 
Crogan, whose mission had been to act as his deputy at distant 
points in the wilderness, and to him Sir William assigned the 
task of going to the place in question to reconcile the inhab- 
itants, both Indian and French, to the English, as a prepara- 
tory step towards official occupation. Fort Pitt was the place 
from which he was to embark on the important but dangerous 
mission Here he was detained a month to receive the last 
installment of captives from the Shawanese, which they had 
the year before stipulated by treaty to give up, and under an 
impression that no time should be lost in sending an English 
deputy to the Illinois, he dispatched an intrepid scout named 
Frazier, with a few attendants, down the Ohio river, with 
instructions to proceed immediately to Kaskaskia and inform 
the authorities there that the agent of Sir William Johnson 
would soon follow, with power to act for him. Frazier 
reached the place in due season, and was well received by the 
inhabitants, but the traders soon got up a conspiracy to kill 
him, for they well knew that his mission was unfavorable to 
their interests. To save himself from their murderous hands 
he sought the protection of Pontiac, and although this chief 
hated the English with double intensity, nevertheless he was 
a tenacious stickler for conventional formalities, and would 
allow no violence done to the Englishman, whom he regarded 
in the light of an ambassador. 

It was early in May, 1765, that Crogan started down the 

Ohio river from Fort Pitt. At various places on the way he 

was detained to execute official business with Indian tribes, 

and it was the 6th of June when he arrived at the mouth of 

*See Johnson Papers in Doc. Hist, of New York. 



34 PONTIAC MEETS OROGAN. 

the Wabash. No English delegation had ever before pene- 
trated so far into the wilds except Frazier's party, and here he 
encamped to take time to consider the situation. On the 8th 
he was attacked by 80 Kickapoo warriors; five of his men 
were killed and he himself slightly wounded, when he gave up 
his command as prisoners. This skirmish took place on the 
soil of Illinois, just below the mouth of the Wabash. Crogan 
and his band were taken up the Wabash to Yincennes, which 
was then a French village of eighty houses, near which was a 
large Piankesha village.* By this time the Kickapoos had 
discovered that their captive was a man not to be trifled with, 
and they regarded him more in the light of a superior than a 
prisoner. 

Having been unable to reach his destination, he wished to 
send a letter to St. Ange, the lawgiver and priest of the Illi- 
nois country, and a messenger was promptly at his bidding to 
carry it. The French furnished him the paper on which to 
write it, but not till the Indians had given their consent. This 
done, he was conducted up the river to Ouatanon, at which 
place he arrived the 23d. Here he was set at liberty, and 
after holding councils with various tribes of the country, he 
started on the 18th of July for the Illinois villages. On the 
way he met Pontiac at the head of a delegation of Indians. 
Hitherto this unrelenting warrior had refused all conciliatory 
meetings with the English, but now for the first time his stub- 
born resolution gave way, and he consented to confer with 
Crogan as to peaceful relations, and the whole party returned 
to Ouatanon for that purpose. After their arrival at the 
place Pontiac renounced his hostile policy, and promised to use 
his influence in favor of peace. This, together with the general 
acquiesence in the English occupation of the country already 
obtained, was all Crogan could ask, and made it unnecessary 
for him to visit the Illinois country according to his first in- 
tention. 

*Crogan's Journal. 



ENGLISH POSSESSION OF ILLINOIS. 35 

He now started for Detroit, where be again counseled with 
the Indians, and from thence started for the headquarters of 
Sir William Johnson on the Mohawk river, to whom he made 
his report. 

In accordance with the original plan, the military commis- 
sion which was to follow Crogan embarked from Fort Pitt in 
the autumn of the same year — 1765. It consisted of about 
120 men from the 42d regiment of Highlanders, under Cap- 
tain Sterling. They arrived at Fort Chartres by way of the 
Ohio and Mississippi rivers on the 10th of October, and for 
the first time within the limits of the present State of Illinois 
the Lilies of France fell from the flagstaff, and the Cross of 
St. George rose in its place. 

This was the last official act that had despoiled France of 
her transcendent possessions on the American continent, for 
already she had, in 1762, ceded New Orleans and her territory 
west of the Mississippi to Spain. 

The French population of the Illinois villages at this time, 
together with St. Louis, was about 2,000, added to whom were 
about 500 slaves. 

The first thing to be done after possession had been taken 
was to issue the proclamation which General Gage had pre- 
pared for the occasion. It guaranteed freedom to the inhab- 
itants in religious matters as well as in their civil rights. But 
the former was all the Frenchman of that day cared for. He 
had no ambition to take a hand in the mysteries of govern- 
ment or to make any nice distinction as to any other rights 
except the right to obey his priest and his magistrate. Such 
was the early Frenchman of Illinois — law-abiding, simple and 
happy. 

Three months after his arrival Captain Sterling died, and 
Major Frazier succeeded him as governor. Early in the spring 
the English troops left the country by the way of the Missis- 
sippi river for Pensacola, from whence they sailed for Phila- 
delphia, arriving there the 15th of June. 



36 THE QUEBEC BILL. 

Colonel Reed succeeded Frazier as governor, but made him- 
self odious to the inhabitants by an oppressive system of mili- 
tary ruling ill suited to the former subjects of the benevolent 
St. Ange. 

The next in command was Colonel Wilkins, who arrived in 
Kaskaskia Sept. 5th, 1768. On the 21st of September follow- 
ing he received orders from General Gage to establish a court 
of justice. Seven judges were appointed, and the first 
English court ever convened in Illinois held its sessions at 
Fort Chartres Dec. 9th, 1768. It is not known how long 
Colonel Wilkins remained in office, or what English governor 
succeeded him, but it is known that St. Ange again returned 
to his loving charge, after having been ruler over St. Louis, . 
which had become a Spanish town in 1762, as already stated. 

The groundwork of the English policy on taking possession 
of the country was foreshadowed by a proclamation issued by 
George III., Oct. 24th, 1765, and again by a proclamation in 
1772.* These proclamations forbade private ownership to the 
soil, and the inference is plain that he intended to divide the 
whole country up into baronial estates. Had it been settled 
by Canadian Frenchmen, such an attempt might have been 
successful, but the growth of the country stimulated the am- 
bition of its inhabitants into higher and broader channels, and 
a more general dispensation of nature's gifts in this wealth- 
producing country than a baronial policy would admit of. 

On the 2d of June, 1774, the British Parliament passed an 
act entitled "The Quebec Bill/' This act extended the limits 
of Canada so as to include all the territory north of the Ohio 
river. This was the first official act of Parliament that gave 
offense to the colonists. It abridged the limits of the Virginia 
colony, which claimed the territory across the Ohio by virtue 
of her original charter, and besides this, it disappointed the 
ambitions of private companies who were at that time contem- 
plating emigration to the valley of the Ohio. Certain acts of 

*Coloniul Records of Penn. 



ROCIIEBLAVE. 37 

Lord Dunmore, the last colonial governor of Virginia, gave 
offense to the border men, who in turn avowed their principles 
and purposes in ominous language,* which clearly foretold the 
Revolution, even before any action had been taken at Boston 
or Philadelphia. As before stated, the British soldiers were 
withdrawn from the Illinois country but few months after their 
arrival there, and there are no records that any more English 
soldiers were ever sent to the place, or that any English gov- 
ernor was ever sent to the country after Wilkins' term, and 
the conclusion seems final that the people here were left to 
execute their own laws, first under St. Ange, as already told, 
and next under Rocheblave, who was a Frenchman, though 
loyal to British interests, as he should be, the country having 
passed into British hands. The latter — Rocheblave — was 
in command of the Illinois country just previous to its con- 
quest by Clark, tne history of which will be told in the next 
chapter. 

*See Dillon's Indiana, Blanchard's Northwest, under head of " Dunmore's 
War." 



38 THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT ORGANIZED. 



CHAPTER IV. 



ILLINOIS UNDER AMERICAN RULE. 

The Continental Congress of thirteen English colonies 
assembled at Philadelphia September 5th, 1774. It was rep- 
resented by each colony, and soon afterwards took upon itself 
the functiotis of a government of its own creation as a substi- 
tute for English authority. 

On the 13th of July, 1775, three Indian departments were 
instituted — a southern, northern and middle. To the latter 
the Illinois country was assigned. Benjamin Franklin and 
James Wilson, of Pennsylvania, and Patrick Henry, of Vir- 
ginia, were appointed commissioners for the middle depart- 
ment. Its remoteness prevented any practical results from 
growing out of this organization. Nevertheless it is worthy 
of record as being the first official action taken by the new 
government to extend its authority over this distant settlement. 

The next year, 1776, on the 10th of April, Colonel George 
Morgan, who had been a trader at Kaskaskia, was appointed 
agent to succeed the former ones of this department. His 
residence was at Fort Pitt, from whence he was required to 
visit the western tribes for the purpose of cultivating their 
friendship. But the English agents had already been among 
them, and not much was accomolished by the Americans 
through Indian alliances. 

Meantime the American Revolution was soon in full tide 
of progress, and none took more interest in it than the fron- 
tier men of Virginia, and none were more willing to make 

*Sec Journal of Continental Congress. 



clark's conquest of Illinois. 39 

sacrifices to bring it to a successful termination. Prominent 
among these men was Colonel George Rogers Clark, a native 
of Albemarle Co., Va. The settlements of Kentucky were 
then begun, and Clark was among the settlers, but left for Vir- 
ginia on the 1st of October, 1777, for the purpose of laying a 
plan before Patrick Henry, the governor, for the conquest of the 
Illinois country. After several interviews, Governor Henry 
gave his consent to his plans, and he immediately set about 
the execution of them. 

The utmost secrecy was necessary, for had it been known in 
advance the English could have sent a force from Detroit to 
waylay him on his march to the place, and also to garrison 
Fort Gage at Kaskaskia with a strong force. As a blind 
to the real destination of the expedition, Governor Henry first 
gave Clark instructions to proceed to the Kentucky settlements 
for the purpose of defending them against Indian attack. These 
were published, and gave rise to murmurs among the revolu- 
tionary spirits of the border that soldiers should be sent on 
such an errand, when they were needed in front to fight the 
British. 

The expedition embarked from Pittsburg, and, as Clark ex- 
pressed it, " shot the falls" at Louisville on the 24th of June, 
kept on down the river to " a little above Fort Massac," and 
from thence marched across the country to Kaskaskia. The 
place contained about 1,000 inhabitants, and was defended by 
a fort named Fort Gage, in honor of the British General Gage. 

'Twas on the evening of the 4th of July that Clark arrived 
at the place. There were no British soldiers there, bat a small 
company of French did garrison at the fort. These, as well 
as the private citizens, were completely taken by surprise. The 
presence of Americans in the streets of Kaskaskia, and even 
in the fort, was the first signal of invasion, and victory was 
won before resistance was thought of. The governor and a 
few leading citizens were seized and put in irons, and every 
inhabitant was ordered to remain in his house on pain of being 



40 CLARK'S CONQUEST OF ILLINOIS. 

shot if found in the street. Meanwhile the conquerors made 
night hideous by their tumult and outcries as they patrolled 
the streets to prevent the escape of the terrified citizens. 

The Americans had been represented to them as monsters 
of cruelty, and their demeanor thus far seemed to verify the 
truth of such an assertion. Clark had already been informed 
of these slanders against him and his men, and, with a deep 
and far-seeing mental analysis of the harmless villagers who 
now lay prostrate at his feet, determined to turn the unjust 
falsehoods to his own advantage. His plan was first to bring 
them to the verge of despair, and then, by a sudden transition 
of clemency, overwhelm them with transports of joy. 

Pending the painful suspense, M. Gibault, the priest, with 
a few of the aged citizens, came to the quarters of General 
Clark and begged that the inhabitants might be permitted to 
assemble in their church to take their last leave of each 
other before being separated. Their request was granted them 
on the ground that the Americans left every man free to settle 
his religious matters with his God .; but no one must leave 
the town. The injunction was obeyed, and after their meeting 
was over Gibault and a few others again visited Clark, and, 
under the expectation that they were all to be driven from 
their homes, requested that they might be allowed to take a 
small amount of provisions with them, and a few articles of 
immediate necessity, and above all, that mothers and children 
should not be separated. Clark listened to these humble pe- 
titions with apparent astonishment, and in reply said, " Do 
you take us for savages?" 

Hitherto with impenetrable immobility he had presented a 
harsh exterior towards them, but now the picture was changed, 
and never did the bright side of human nature through a 
rough exterior show to better advantage. 

They were not to be driven from their homes or plundered 
of their property, nor were they to be denied the riteb of 
their religion. He had come among them for a far different 



clark's conquest of Illinois. 41 

purpose. His mission was to introduce the new government 
in their midst and offer to take them under its protection — a 
government that France had just allied itself to, which was 
news to them — it having been sent to Clark after he left Fort 
Pitt. 

The effect of this unexpected magnanimity was like a sud- 
den recoil from despair to the full fruition of the heart's desire, 
and the volatile French gave vent to their feelings in trans- 
ports of joy. The stock of the new government rose above 
par. Cahokia and all the other adjacent towns promptly 
yielded to Clark's authority, and young America became firmly 
planted on the soil of Illinois. 

This was but the initiatory step in the work before the bold 
adventurer. Five hundred miles of wilderness intervened 
between him and Fort Pitt, the nearest post from which 
succor could be obtained in case of a reverse. The English 
were in force at Detroit, and could easily send a garrison 
to Vincennes, on the Wabash, a point intervening between 
him and the frontier from whence he had marched. That 
ultimate failure in his plans could only be averted by the 
most heroic policy, coupled with extraordinary activity, was 
evident to the mind of Clark, and he set himself about the 
execution of the yet unfinished work before him without loss 
of time. 

His masterly efforts to win the good will of the French had 
been successful, and the next work to be done was to win the 
favor of the Indians, whose power was then transcendent 
throughout the whole interior. 

Pending his efforts in this direction Gibault, the priest, 
volunteered to go to Yincennes with others, among whom was 
Captain Helm, to advocate the American cause at that post. 
In this he was successful. Those who represented the British 
interest there gave way to the all-prevailing sentiment in favor 
of the Americans, and Captain Helm became commandant of 
the place. 



42 olark's conquest of Illinois. 

Such was the state of affairs in the autumn of 1778, but 
on the 15th of December Henry Hamilton, the British gov- 
ernor of Detroit, suddenly appeared before Yincennes with 
a force of 30 British regulars, 50 French volunteers from 
among the citizens of Detroit, and 400 Indians. Helm had 
no force in command to oppose them, and on came the 
invaders, with Colonel Hamilton at their head, and at his 
post stood Captain Helm, match in hand, ready to fire a loaded 
cannon at them. When they had arrived within hailing dis- 
tance, the tenacious defender of the fort shouted " Halt!" 
This brought a reply from Hamilton demanding a surrender. 
Helm in turn demanded the honors of war, which terms 
were granted, and Hamilton took possession of the place, 
its garrison consisting of Captain Helm and one soldier, 
named Henry.* 

The situation of Clark was now perilous in the extreme, but 
he took prompt measures to meet the emergency. On the 
29th of January succeeding, which was in 1779, there arrived 
at his quarters from Yincennes Francis Vigo, a Spanish mer- 
chant. He had important news for General Clark — Hamilton 
had weakened his force by sending his Indians to blockade the 
Ohio river, in order to cut off the retreat of the Americans. 
"If I don't take Hamilton, Hamilton will take me," ex- 
claimed Clark. His resolution was immediately made, and he 
determined to march against Yincennes. A company of 
French volunteers was raised, which, added to a company of 
his own, constituted a force of 170 men. These were to 
march overland to the place, while a vessel commanded by 
John Rogers, with 46 men, was sent down the Mississippi and 
up the Ohio and Wabash, to transport the necessary stores and 
cooperate with the land forces. The vessel started on the 10th 
of February, and the land forces the next day, 216 men all 
told, to wrest from the British empire a country large enough 
fur a kingdom. 

*Butler's Kentucky. 



clakk's CONQUEST OF ILLINOIS. 43 

When General Clark arrived at the Wabash, its waters were 
so swollen by late rains that the country for many miles 
around was inundated, and after crossing the turbulent river 
the invaders had to wade in water up to their arm-pits, in 
places, before camping ground could be reached. This they 
did under the inspiration of a war song, in which the whole 
line joined, as they struggled through the flooded valleys like 
amphibious beings. Having passed these watery wastes, the 
men encamped for the night on a rise of ground, half famished 
with hunger and chilled to their vitals with their cold water 
wadings. Fortunately a small supply of food was soon ob- 
tained from some Indian hunters, and the next day the whole 
force marched against Fort Sackville, which defended the town. 
The attack was made, and twenty-four hours' firing resulted in 
wounding many of Hamilton's soldiers, and he surrendered at 
discretion on the 24th of February. 

In vain may the records of warfare be searched to find so 
important a conquest achieved by so small a force. The whole 
plan from the first looked like a desperate one, and had Ham- 
ilton not felt an assurance that he could circumvent it, he 
would not have weakened his own force by sending a detach- 
ment to the Ohio to cut off Clark on a retreat that he (Ham- 
ilton) felt certain would be attempted by the "rash adven- 
turer," as he regarded him. 

Clark's success was the result of an accumulation of circum- 
stances, some of which fortuitously grew out of its apparent 
impossibility in the estimation of his antagonist, as well as out 
of the hardihood of his men, but, more than either of these, 
out of his own versatility of talent to turn even obstacles in 
his path to ultimate advantage. But this conquest, marvelous 
as it appeared, was only one step towards the final destiny of 
Illinois, as well as the whole territory north of the Ohio river. 

At the negotiations in Paris in 1783, which arranged the 
terms of peace after the American Revolution, the most im- 
portant point to agree on was to establish a western boundary 



44 DIPLOMACY AT PARIS. 

for the new nation. The provisions of the Quebec bill of 
1774 had made the Ohio river the southern line of Canada, 
and the British tenaciously held to this claim. Meantime the 
Count de Aranda, the Spanish Commissioner, claimed all the 
territory west of the Alleghany mountains. At this juncture 
the American Ministers, Jay, Adams, Franklin and Laurens 
discovered that the French Commissioner, Count Vergennes, 
was secretly using his influence in favor of the Spanish claim. 
This served to complicate the issue still more, and helped to 
weaken the resolution of the British Commissioner to insist 
on the rights of England in an issue which might prolong a 
controversy with her European rivals; for had the signing of 
the treaty hung on the pleasure of Spain till her consent was 
obtained to making the Mississippi the western boundary of 
the United States, it would never have been signed, and it is 
highly probable that England would not have conceded this 
point if the Spanish claim had not presented obstacles in the 
way of her retaining the territory in dispute, even if the 
Americans should relinquish it. This consideration, in ad- 
dition to the American rights by virtue of Clark's conquest, 
settled the destiny of Illinois by placing her under the flag 
of the United States at the treaty of Paris, signed September 
3d, 1783, and ratified by Congress at Philadelphia, January 
14th, 1784. 

From the first the Americans had shown a firm purpose to 
retain the Illinois country, and, in accordance with this reso- 
lution, the General Assembly of Virginia, in October, 1778, 
made provision for the forms of a temporary govern- 
ment there, and the following year, on the 15th of June, 
John Todd, a Colonel under Clark, by authority of these pro- 
visions, issued a proclamation at Kaskaskia, organizing the 
country into a county of Virginia, to be called Illinois County, 
and a fort was built the same year on the east bank of the 
Mississippi river, just below the mouth of the Ohio, to defend 
the country from the Spaniards. At that time Spain owned 



SPANISH RIVALRY. 45 

half of South America, Central America, Mexico, the West 
Indies, Florida, and all the territory west of the Mississippi 
river to the Pacific ocean. She was the European power 
above all others that represented the intensified forms of 
feudalism and tyranny, bold, defiant and aggressive in her 
state councils, and intolerant in civil and religious rights. The 
fires of despotism were consuming her vitals, and soon burnt 
out the materials wherewith to sustain her dogged and un- 
compromising determination to crush the manhood out of her 
colonial subjects. The consequence was that her power went 
rapidly into decline when the portions of America over which 
her laws extended were brought into proximity and rivalry 
with the progressive spirit of young America, as the sequel 
proved. To record the history of her attempts to extend her 
dominion over the Mississippi valley would fill a volume. All 
of them were abortive, for the reason that her government was 
behind the age of the progressive civilization that had been 
growing into maturity under liberal English law in America. 
This law, when extended over the French settlements, was 
hailed with welcome, for the reason that it deprived them of 
no natural right, and most of the inhabitants took the oath of 
allegiance to the State of Virginia under Todd's administra- 
tion. He was killed at the battle of Blue Licks, in Kentucky, 
August 18th, 1782, and was succeeded by Timothy Montbrun, 
a Frenchman. 

From this period till the occupation of the country by St. 
Clair, no official records are extant of its government, and the 
inference is that during this hiatus no difficulties arose that 
could not be settled by the priest. It was during this interim 
that the first American settlement in Illinois was made. It 
was located in the present county of Monroe, and signifi- 
cantly named ,l New Design.' The names of these settlers 
were James Moore, Shadrack Bond, James Garrison, Robert 
Kidd, and Larken Rutherford. The two latter were soldiers 
in General Clark's army. In the summer of 1781 all these, 



46 FIRST AMERICAN SETTLEMENT. 

with their families, had crossed the Alleghany mountains and 
embarked from Pittsburg on board of what was then called an 
ark. When the mouth of the Ohio was readied, with many a 
heavy strain, they urged their ark up the current of the Mis- 
sissippi to the shore opposite this settlement, debarked, and set 
the first permanent Anglo-American stakes into the soil of 
Illinois. 

These men were composed of a more inflexible material 
than the French. There was no sympathy between them and 
the Indians, and the consequence was that a hostile feeling 
ultimately grew up between each which in time made it neces- 
sary to build a block-house as a refuge in the event of an out- 
break. 

By virtue of her royal charter, as already stated, the claim 
of Virginia to all the lands north of the Ohio river was ac- 
knowledged by common consent, and was valid, perhaps in 
default of its never having been disputed by a high legal 
court. But the magnanimity of this venerable old State made 
any such action unnecessary by ceding the territory in ques- 
tion to the United States, the deed of cession bearing date 
March 1st, 1784. 

This broad creation of prairie and forest, seamed by a 
thousand rivers and enriched by countless autumnal leaf-falls 
and prairie growths, was then, comparatively speaking, an im- 
maculate tablet, unscarred by the plow, and steps were promptly 
taken by Congress to facilitate its settlement and guarantee to 
each settler such lands as he selected and paid for. Accord- 
ingly on the 20th of May, 1785, an act was passed for the 
survey of such lands as had been purchased from the Indians. 
And now began that system of public surveys which may 
justly be called the best in the world It was begun under 
charge of Thomas Huchins, the same who mapped out the 
Ohio country by observation during a tour through it soon 
after Bouquet's expedition to the Muskingum. These surveys 



TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENT ORGANIZED. 47 

now form the basis for a description of every farm, and even 
every village lot, in the entire northwest. 

On the 5th of October, 1787, Arthur St. Clair, a venerable 
Revolutionary officer, was appointed governor of the entire 
country north of the Ohio river, which was designated as the 
Northwest Territory. On the 9th of July the next year he 
arrived at Marietta, a settlement recently made at the mouth 
of the Muskingum river, and set the new machinery of gov- 
ernment in motion. The first county was laid out with 
dimensions large enough to include all the settlements on the 
river, and named Washington county. About the first of 
June, 1790, the governor, with the judges of the superior 
court, descended the Ohio river to Cincinnati, and laid out 
Hamilton county. A few weeks later he, with Winthrop 
Sargeant, secretary of the territory, proceeded to Kaskaskia 
and organized the settled portions of the Illinois country into 
one county, which, in honor of the governor, was named St. 
Clair county. All former official organizations here had been 
by authority of the State of Virginia, and had been transient 
in their character, but now the permanency of national author- 
ity had stamped its seal on Illinois soil. A court was estab- 
lished at Cahokia, and justices of the peace appointed for 
each of the adjacent villages. 

In 1795 settlements had increased so as to make the organi- 
zation of another county necessary, and Randolph county was 
laid out, occupying all the territory south of an east and west 
line drawn through the New Design settlement from the Mis- 
sissippi to the Wabash river, St. Clair county occupying the 
territory north of this line, and Randolph that south of it. 

By an act of Congress May 7th, 1800, the Northwest Ter- 
ritory was divided, the present limits of the State of Indiana, 
together with those of Michigan, Wisconsin and Illinois being 
set off and named Indiana Territory. On the 13th of the 
same month William Henry Harrison was appointed governor, 
and John Gibson, the same to whom Logan made his cele- 



48 ILLINOIS A PART OF INDIANA TERRITORY. 

brated speech, was appointed secretary. The seat of govern- 
ment was fixed at Vincennes, at which place Harrison arrived 
January 10th, 1801, and immediately organized the new gov- 
ernment. 

On the 3d of January, 1805, an election was held by order 
of Governor Harrison, to elect representatives for the assem- 
bly at Vincennes. The legislature met July 29th, 1805. 
Shadrack Bond and William Biggs, were chosen to represent 
St. Clair county, and George Fisher, Randolph county. 

By an act of Congress approved January 11th, 1805, Indi- 
ana Territory was divided; all that portion of it lying north of 
a line due east from the southern extremity of Lake Michigan 
being set off and named Michigan Territory. This only took 
from the Indiana Territory the portion of Michigan between 
Lakes LIuron and Michigan, that portion of the present State 
of Michigan bordering on Lake Superior having been annexed 
to the state since that period, to ofiset for the loss of territory 
claimed by Ohio on her southern border. On February 3d, 
1809, Indiana Territory was again divided by setting off the 
territory of Illinois, embracing its present limits, together 
with the present limits of Wisconsin and the peninsular por- 
tion of Michigan. Ninian Edwards was appointed governor, 
his commission bearing date April 24th, 1809. Nathaniel 
Pope was appointed secretary. The seat of government was 
fixed at Kaskaskia, at which place Governor Edwards assumed 
his official duties on the 11th of the following June. 

The machinery of the first grade of government was now 
put in practice. By it the governor and judges constituted the 
legislature. 

By an act of Congress May 21st, 1812, the territory of 
Illinois was promoted to the second grade of government. Up 
to this time every county and town officer had been appointed 
by the governor; now they were to be elected by the people, 
but the right of suffrage was extended to those only who had 
paid a territorial tax. 



EARTHQUAKE OF 1811. 49 

Three new counties, Madison, Gallatin and Johnson, were 
organized, making five in all, and an election was ordered in 
each to elect five members of the legislative council, seven 
representatives, and one delegate to Congress. Shadrack 
Bond was elected to the latter office, being the first one elected 
by the people for that position. 

The great earthquake of 1811, the centre of which was at 
New Madrid, on the Mississippi below the mouth of the Ohio 
river, was severely felt in Southern Illinois. It began on the 
night of the 15th of December, and a succession of shocks 
were felt for several days succeeding. The ground opened at 
many places in the vicinity of New Madrid and emitted 
sulphurous steam, closing again with a loud noise, and throw- 
ing jets of mud and water high into the air. Near this place 
much ground was sunk, and became permanently covered with 
water. The shocks were felt along the entire valley of the 
Ohio river, and up the Mississippi river they were reported at 
St. Louis, which was as far as settlements then extended. 



50 BATTLE OF TIPPECAKOE. 



CHAPTER V. 



ILLINOIS IN THE WAR OF 1812. 

To write the history of all the scenes of violence that 
marked the contest between the Indians and the frontiersmen 
during the pioneer age of the northwest would fill many vol- 
umes, but, happily for Illinois, she has been comparatively 
exempt from Indian wars as they have raged in Ohio and In- 
diana, no great Indian battle having ever been fought within her 
limits, for the reason that the force and power of the Indians 
was greatly weakened before settlements had progressed to any 
great extent in this territory. 

The battle of Tippecanoe, fought between the Shawanese 
and other tribes against the forces of General Harrison, No- 
vember 7th, 1811, resulted disastrously to the Indians, and 
doubtless prevented a confederation of the tribes of Illinois 
from combining against the settlers of this state by any con- 
certed movement. Owing to this cause Indian hostilities here 
were confined to small skirmishes, personal encounters, or to 
Indian scouts on pilfering expeditions. In almost all these 
the Indians got the worst of it, as the exploits of Illinois 
pioneers have abundantly shown. 

Another reason why the Indians here were less powerful for 
mischief and less aggressive than those farther east was owing 
to their greater distance from Canada, at which place their 
" British Fathers," as they called them, had subsidized all the 
tribes north of the Ohio into their friendship by an annual 
distribution of presents at Maiden. 



WAR DECLARED. 51 

The effect on the minds of the Indians of this prodigal gen- 
erosity was prodigious, for they in their simplicity believed 
that disinterested benevolence was the incentive on the part 
of the givers. In this they were mistaken, for there was a 
policy in it which in due time came to the surface. 

Even after the fires of the Revolution had died away the 
English left the region of the lakes with reluctance, retaining 
Detroit, Sandusky and other posts till 1796, contrary to treaty 
stipulations, giving as a reason that the posts were held to 
secure the collection of private debts due from citizens of the 
United States to British subjects. Meantime the persistence 
of the British of Canada to furnish the Indians with arms 
and to encourage them to resist the Americans gave great, 
offense to the latter. This state of things lasted from 1789 
to 1812, and embittered the minds of the border men against 
the British to such an extent that, had their counsels ruled in 
the nation, war would have been declared against England in 
1793, when she built a fort at the Maumee rapids, more than 
twenty miles inside of the Canada line. 

Pending these accumulating grievances the French Revolu- 
tion convulsed Europe, and out of its dissolution Napoleon 
rose into power. Between him and England there was no 
peace. As years rolled on the war between France and 
England grew into immense proportions, and the latter did not 
hesitate to supply her navy with seamen from the decks of 
American vessels. This latter insult to the nation, added to 
many others that preceded it, was the cause of the declaration 
of the war of 1812. It was made the 18th of June. The 
news rang through the western forests, carried by fleet-footed 
messengers, and the Indians hovered around the standard of 
their ''British Father" in Canada, thinking the time had 
come when the Americans should be driven from their soil by 
the aid of English bayonets. 

General. Hull was promptly sent to Detroit with a force to 
garrison the place and hold it against the British in Canada. 



52 FORT DEARBOK.N EVACUATED. 

He had only been there a short time when he found a power- 
ful and wide-spread Indian confederacy arrayed against him, 
which was the result of the previous years of British patron- 
age and generosity. Their savage retainers held possession 
of the forest path through which General Hull had marched 
to Detroit, and closed the door behind him. Meantime the 
British, by means of their fleet on Lake Erie, could concen- 
trate their forces upon him with facility, and he soon found 
himself menaced in front by a powerful foe, while his rear 
bristled with Indian tomahawks and scalping-knives. 

Fort Dearborn at Chicago, which had been built in 1803-4, 
was included in the military district under his charge, and 
during his waning fortunes he determined to send a messenger 
to the place to give Captain Heald, its commander, timely 
warning to save the garrison by retreating to Fort Wayne if 
the place could not hold out until relief could come. 

General Hull had in his camp at that time a friendly Pot- 
to watomie chief, named Winnemac, and to him was the mis- 
sion confided. He was faithful to his trust, and on the 9th 
of August arrived at Fort Dearborn and handed his dispatch 
to Captain Heald. 

War had been declared by the United States against Eng- 
land, Michilimacinac had been taken, and Detroit was hard 
pressed by the British and their red allies. This was the bur- 
den of news which the messenger brought to this far-off post 
in their isolated hermitage. Farther, Captain Heald was or- 
dered to evacuate Fort Dearborn provided lie had not means 
to defend it. Under an impression that he had not he ordered 
an evacuation, though against the advice of his subordinate 
officers. 

The 15th of August was set for the day, and the garrison, 
mustering 66 men, started on their route for Fort Wayne. On 
arriving at the locality where Eighteenth street now terminates 
at the lake, they were attacked by five times their number oi' 
Pottowatomies. The soldiers in vain charged upon their nu- 



MASSACRE AT CHICAGO. 53 

merous foes, with Captain Wells at their head, who had arrived 
the day before from Fort Wayne to help defend them. Wells 
was killed, and with him fell more than half of the heroic 
band of soldiers. The remainder, with Mrs. Helm,* the Kin- 
zie family, j- and some of the wives of the officers, became 
prisoners, and were subsequently ransomed by Mr. Forsythe, 
the Indian agent at Peoria, and others. 

This massacre was in the interest of the British in their 
contest with the Americans, though not done under their 
orders, but under savage responsibility on British account. 
This opening of the war was all in favor of the British. The 
campaign had been short and decisive, but a new one was at 
hand, destined to offset fourfold for its disgrace. 

On the 24th of September General Harrison received a dis- 
patch from the president that he had been appointed to the 
command of the northwest. The first thing for him to do 
was to take effective measures for the protection of the most 
remote frontier, after which the British were to be driven from 
Detroit, 

General Shelby, of Kentucky, entered heartily into the 
work, and had raised an army of volunteers and placed them 
under command of General Hopkins, who was at Vin- 
cennes late in September awaiting orders, and while General 
Harrison was approaching Detroit, his forces were destined for 
the Illinois service, to destroy the Kickanoo villages along the 
Illinois river. 

On the 11th of October two companies of United States 
Rangers, under command of Colonel Russell, were ordered to 
march immediately to Edwardsville, Illinois, where they were 

*This noble woman's life was spared by the timely interposition of Black 
Partridge. After her ransom she wrote a graphic account of the battle, 
which was published in Wabun, and transferred from thence to various 
other histories. 

f John Kinzie was sent in irons to Maiden, from which place while pris- 
oner he beheld the smoke of Perry's victory on the lake and the retreat of 
the Little Belt and her capture. Blanchard's Northwest. 



54 EXPEDITION AGAINST THE INDIANS. 

to be placed under command of Governor Edwards to be added 
to his forces. Thus united, the army was to march against 
the Indian towns on the Illinois river, in which vicinity it was 
to form a junction with the army of General Hopkins. The 
latter started from Vincennes early in October, crossed the 
Wabash at Fort Harrison, and began its march into the broad 
prairies of the interior toward the objective point. They 
were composed mostly of raw recruits who had never seen 
service, and the country they had entered seemed strange and 
bewildering in its vastness. The prairie fires lit up the sky 
each night with lurid glares and wrought upon their fears, and 
at the end of the fourth day's march the whole army refused 
to obey orders. Accordingly the next morning the volunteers 
turned backward and retraced their steps by the way they had 
advanced, despite the orders of their General. 

While these unsoldier-like men were retreating before they 
had come in sight of the enemy, Governor Edwards' army 
were advancing according to the original plan, and arriving at 
an Indian town on the east bank of Peoria Lake, found it de- 
serted except by a single Indian and a squaw. The luckless 
brave was shot at the first sight of him, and the squaw, after 
many shots having been fired at her under the impression that 
she was a brave, was taken captive. She was not wounded, 
but cave vent to her feelings in a flood of tears, and was soon 
set at liberty. The country had never before been penetrated 
by Americans, and the number of Indians it contained was 
not known. No tidings of General Hopkins were received, 
and it was deemed expedient to retreat, lest superior numbers 
might be brought against them. The governor therefore re- 
turned to Camp Russell and discharged the volunteers. 

Peoria at this time contained a mixed population of French 
and Indians, and the former were accused by the Americans of 
befriending the Indians and supplying them with ammunition. 
Under this apprehension a gunboat expedition under Captain 
Craig was to act in conjunction with the land forces of Governor 



PEORIA BURNED. 55 

Edwards, and General Hopkins, to supply the two armies 
with provisions and the necessary stores for the campaign. 
This failed to make a connection with the army of the gov- 
ernor, but advanced to Peoria, burnt the town, and taking most 
of the French inhabitants prisoners, transported them down the 
Illinois river to the banks of the Mississippi, and turned them 
loose on its desolate banks without food. After much suffer- 
ing the outcasts found their way back to their homes, which, 
though laid in ashes, were rebuilt, and Peoria continued to be 
a French trading post till American settlers came to the place. 
The writer has no data at hand to show the grounds of suspi- 
cion of French alliance with the Indians, or the kind of aid 
furnished them by which the Americans felt aggrieved, and 
by which they justified their attack upon the town and abduc- 
tion of its French citizens. Whatever these grounds were, it 
is certain that no subsequent attack was made on the place, 
by which an inference may be made that the first one was un- 
necessary. 

The next year, 1813, another expedition was set on foot 
from Camp Russell. It crossed the Illinois two miles above its 
mouth, thence went to the Mississippi, and marched up its 
east bank to the lower rapids, from whence it went across the 
country to the Illinois river, and arriving at Peoria, built a 
fort, which, in honor of General George Rogers Clark, was 
called Fort Clark. The expedition then advanced up the river 
to Gomas village, destroyed it, and returned to Camp Rus- 
sell. This closed the campaign of 1813 in Illinois, and it 
must be confessed that it was by a very tenacious and far- 
fetched resolution to defend the state that the war had been 
waged against the Indians, and especially against the French 
of Peoria. 

The campaign of 1814 opened with increased activity along 
the frontiers of Illinois, for now an actual enemy was at their 
gates. Notwithstanding the British had been driven from 
Detroit and signally defeated both on sea and land by the 



56 PRAIRIE DU CHIEN TAKEN. 

forces of General Harrison and Commodore Perry, Michili- 
macinac and Prairie du Chien were still in their possession, 
and against the latter an expedition was planned. It started 
from St. Louis about the 1st of May in four barges, on board 
of which were 200 men under charge of Governor Clark, of 
Missouri. They arrived at the place and took possession with- 
out resistance, almost the entire British force, under the 
celebrated Colonel Dickson, having left for Canada to recruit 
the British army there, who were being hard pressed by the 
Americans. 

The following July a large force of British and Indians re- 
turned and laid siege to the place. It was taken after a stout 
resistance, and the garrison were sent to St. Louis as paroled 
prisoners. 

The following August an expedition was fitted out at Cape 
au Gris, destined for the upper Mississippi, under command of 
General Z. Taylor, the same who afterwards became President 
of the United States. 

It started on the 24th of August, in armed barges, with 
334 men. A little above Rock Island they were attacked by 
a superior force of British and Indians under the command of 
the celebrated Black Hawk,* and defeated after a desperate 
battle. 

This terminated the war in Illinois and Wisconsin, as the 
negotiations of Ghent soon followed, articles of peace being 
signed December 24th, 1814, and the British forces withdrew 
from the beautiful lake country to its northern shore, and the 
Indians once more settled into peace. 

*This must have been soon after Black Hawk's return from the army of 
General Proctor. See Black Hawk's narration in Smith's Doc. Hist, of Wis. 



ILLINOIS A STATE. 57 



CHAPTER VI. 



ADMINISTRATIONS OF THE GOVERNORS OF ILLINOIS. 

In January, 1818, the territorial legislature sent a petition 
to Congress for admission into the Union as an independent 
state. Nathaniel Pope was then delegate, and through his 
instrumentality the petition was not only granted, hut the hill 
was so amended as to extend the northern limits of the state 
from its proposed boundary to latitude 42° 30'. Its first 
limit was a line drawn due west from the southern extremity 
of Lake Michigan to the Mississippi river. The amended hill 
became a law April 18th, hut the act for admission of the 
state into the Union was not passed till December 30th, 1818.* 

In July, 1818, a convention was called at Kaskaskia to draft 
a constitution, of which Jesse B. Thomas was president and 
William C. Greenup secretary. The following are the names 
of the counties then in existence, all of which were repre- 
sented in the convention : Randolph, Madison, Gallatin, John- 
son, Pope, Jackson, Crawford, Bond. Union, Washington and 
Franklin. 

This constitution was not submitted to a vote of the people 
for ratification. By its provisions judges, prosecuting attor- 
neys, county and circuit judges, recorders and justices of the 
peace, were all appointed by the governor or legislature, in- 
stead of being elected by the people. The first election under 
it for governor was held in September, 1818, which resulted 
in the election of Shadrack Bond, and Pierre Menard was 

"Ford's History of Illinois gives in full the reasons for extending the 
northern boundary. 



58 VANDALIA THK CAPITAL. 

elected lieutenant governor. They were inaugurated Octo- 
ber 6 th. 

Tn 1820 the seat of government was removed to Yandalia. 
Anion" 1 its earliest labors was the creation of the Illinois state 
hank, with a capital of half a million dollars, based on the 
credit of the state. 

In August, 1822, Edward Coles was elected governor by a 
small plurality over his principal opponent, Joseph Phillips, 
there being two other candidates in the field. Adolplms F. 
Hubbard was elected lieutenant governor. The inauguration 
took place December 5th. In this election the final contest 
was involved between those who wished to make Illinois a 
slave state and those who wished to make it a free state, and 
on this issue the people were not very unequally divided. 

Shivery had existed here ever since 1720, at which time 
Philip Francis Renault, as agent for the company of St. Phil- 
lips, introduced it. The company of which he was agent was 
an offshoot of that established by the celebrated John Law in 
1717. By the -distempered imaginations of those interested 
in the Law company, the whole country was looked upon as a 
mining field for precious metals, and to work the mines 500 
slaves were purchased in St. Domingo and transported to the 
Illinois country. After this theory had been dispelled, a part 
of them were employed in working the lead mines of Missouri 
and Dubucpue, while a portion of them were purchased by the 
French settlers, and the offspring of the latter became the 
slave population of Illinois down to the time of Governor 
Coles' election. By the ordinance of 1787 slavery had been 
prohibited in the entire territory of the northwest, of which 
Illinois was a part, and it existed here only by means of 
various legal subterfuges by which the provisions of the 
ordinance had been averted. 

Governor Coles was an able and uncompromising advocate 
of Freedom, and it was evident to those representing the other 
side that unless a new constitution which fully recognized 



ANTI-SLAVERY STRUGGLE. 59 

slavery as the future policy of the state could be obtained, that 
this institution must ultimately die out. Accordingly meas- 
ures were taken by the slavery party to obtain it. To this end 
it was necessary by law to «get a two-thirds vote of the gen- 
eral assembly in favor of calling an election of the people to 
vote on the question of changing the constitution. This was 
obtained by dint of aggressive and defiant means best known 
to those who have been drilled in a school of partisan politics, 
and now the slavery party were confident of success. The 
election was proclaimed, but eighteen months intervened be- 
fore it was to be held, and it is probable that no state election 
was ever held since the United States became a nation in 
which so much determination of purpose was thrown into the 
arena. The cause of Freedom triumphed, 6,640 votes being 
polled against a convention to change the constitution against 
4,972 in favor of it. 

This was the Waterloo of the slavery advocates in Illinois, 
and to Governor Coles more than to any other man is due the 
credit of the victory.* 

in the spring of 1825, by invitation of Governor Coles, 
General La Fayette, who was then in America, visited Illinois. 
The governor had previously made the acquaintance of La 
Fayette in Paris, and the meeting of these distinguished 
statesmen in this distant frontier, as Illinois then was, made 
the fires of freedom burn anew, and was a season of rejoicing 
to the French as well as the Americans. 

In the autumn election of 1826 Ninian Edwards was elected 
governor and Win. Kinney lieutenant governor of Illinois, and 
were inaugurated December 6th. No exciting questions came 
up under his administration, and the governor turned his 
attention to improving the finances of the state. In this he 
was successful, the annual expenses of the state being $20,000, 
and the revenue $35,000 — small sums compared to its present 
outgoes and incomes. 

*See E. B. Washburne's Life of Governor Coles. 



60 THE SAUK WAR. 

In August, 1830, John Reynolds was elected governor and 
Zadoc Casey lieutenant governor, and were inaugurated De- 
cember 9th. The great event of his administration was the 
Sauk war. The Sauks and Foxes then occupied the territory 
intervening between the Rock and Mississippi rivers. By a 
treaty held in St. Louis November 3d, 1804, this tribe had 
ceded nearly all the lands they held in Illinois and Wisconsin 
to the United States, General Harrison representing the United 
States, and five chiefs representing the Sauk and Fox and Winne- 
bago nations in the treaty By its provisions the Indians were 
to retain their lands till they were wanted for settlements. Dur- 
ing the war of 1S12 with England, through the influence of 
Colonel Dickson, a British officer at Prairie du Chien, a part of 
this tribe had allied themselves to the British, and these were 
called " The British Band." Black Hawk was their acknowl- 
edged leader, while Keoknk, the principal chief of the tribe, 
was opposed to the policy of resistance to the United States. 
Black Hawk's village was on the tongue of land at the mouth 
of the Rock river, between it and the Mississippi. 

After the peace at the close of the war of 1812, amicable rela- 
tions existed with the Indians till July 15th, 1830, at which time 
Keokuk made a final cession at Prairie du Chien to the United 
States of all the land his tribe held east of the Misssisippi river. 

This was done without the knowledge of Black Hawk, and 
wnen this tenacious old veteran learned the news his indi^na- 
tion was aroused, for he had always been opposed to yielding 
territory to the whites. By its stipulations Black Hawk and 
his band were to leave their village the next year and occupy 
land west of the Mississippi. Keokuk used his influence to 
persuade the whole tribe to do it, while Black Hawk took the 
other side. Keokuk with his band crossed the river, but 
Black Hawk, instead of quietly submitting, scoured the country 
from Canada to the Mississippi to secure aid to his cause. He 
declared the treaty of 1804 to have been obtained through 
fraud, and determined to hold his position. 



THE SAUK WAR. 61 

During the winter of 1830-1, as usual, his whole tribe left 
their village on a hunting excursion, to procure furs where- 
with to pay their debts to the traders and buy new supplies of 
goods. On their return in the following April they found 
their village in possession of the palefaces. The fur trader at 
Rock Island, a former friend of Black Hawk, had purchased 
the very ground on which the village stood, and he and his 
associates were making preparations to cultivate the adjacent 
corn-field of 700 acres. The indignation of the Indians was 
now aroused, but, owing to the temperate counsels of Black 
Hawk, a compromise was made by which the field was divided 
between the new claimants and the Indians, each to cultivate 
their respective half. 

This truce did not prevent disputes, and even trespassing on 
each other's rights, and on the 18th of May eight of the white 
settlers united in a memorial to Governor Reynolds setting 
forth their grievances. On the 27th he made a call for 700 
volunteers to protect the settlers. General Gaines then held 
command of this military district, and reached Fort Arm- 
strong, on Rock Island, on the 7th of June. To the gov- 
ernor's call 1,600 volunteers had responded, and were promptly 
on the spot ready to execute the orders of General Gaines. 
When they came to Black Hawk's village he yielded to the 
situation and crossed over to the west side with his tribe on 
the night of the 24th. General Gaines took possession of his 
village on the 26th. Black Hawk meantime, with his starving 
followers, were encamped on the opposite side of the river, 
with a white flag fluttering over their heads. On the 30th a 
treaty was held with him, and Black Hawk gave up his inten- 
tions of holding his lands. Rations were dealt out to the 
submissive Indians, and the volunteers were dismissed 

Early in April the following year, 1832, Black Hawk in an 
evil hour recrossed the Mississippi with his band and marched 
up the Rock river, under pretense, perhaps sincere, of paying 
a visit to his "Winnebago friends in Wisconsin, to plant corn 



62 THE SAUK WAR. 

in their country. General Atkinson then held command of 
Fort Armstrong, and sent messengers after him to warn him 
back. Black Hawk paid no heed to the warning, but con- 
tinued on his way till Dixon's ferry was reached, where he 
encamped. 

Pending their stay at the place Mrs. Dixon invited Black 
Hawk and his friends to dine with her, she herself playing 
hostess at the table and entering freely into conversation with 
her tawny guests, and Black Hawk, as he acknowledged, felt 
complimented by her respectful attentions to himself and 
friends, especially because she sat at the table and enjoyed the 
dinner with them.* 

The news of Black Hawk's return to Illinois soon reached 
the ears of Governor Reynolds, who forthwith raised a force 
of 1,800 volunteers, to be put under the command of General 
Whitesides, to follow him. The army reached Dixon the 1 2th 
of May. Meantime Black Hawk had left the place and en- 
camped on the banks of Sycamore creek, a tributary of the 
Rock river thirty miles above. 

Two days after the arrival of the volunteers at Dixon, an 
ambitious officer named Stillman begged the privilege of the 
general in command of making a reconnoisance on Black 
Hawk's camp. With reluctance it was granted, and Major 
Stillman started with 2T5 men for the adventure. Black Hawk 
was entertaining his Winnebago friends at a dog feast when the 
volunteers approached his camp, and he sent a party of six 
men to meet them under protection of a white flag. By some 
misdirection this party was fired on by the undisciplined vol- 
unteers and two of them killed while in retreat, j- Pending this 
melee the forces of Stillman were scattered beyond the control 
of their commander while giving chase to the flying truce- 
bearers, and Black Hawk, justly indignant at the treatment 

*For this incident the writer is indebted to a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. 
Dixon, who now survives her worthy parents at the place, 
f Reynolds' Illinois. 



THE SAUK WAK. 63 

they had received, raised the war-whoop and repelled the 
attack with his accustomed spirit. The volunteers were in no 
condition to even act on the defensive, and fled in confusion 
before him, leaving 11 of their number dead. This was the 
first blood drawn in the Sauk war. The fugitives reached 
Dixon the next day, stinging under the most disgraceful defeat 
ever received by white men at the hands of Indians. This 
insignificant affair gave Black Hawk a crumb of comfort, but 
it stimulated the government to prompt action to prevent the 
Winnebagos and Pottawattomies from taking up the hatchet. 

At that time the northern frontier settlements of Illinois 
barely reached Bureau creek, Plainville and JSTaperville. The 
lead mines had drawn to the vicinity of Galena settlements 
twelve or fifteen miles in extent, and Chicago was then a vil- 
lage of two or tjiree hundred inhabitants, sheltered by the 
protection of Fort Dearborn. 

The alarm was soon carried to these frontiers, chiefly through 
the efforts of that noble old Pottowattomie chief, Shabena, 
and by his timely warning the settlers on the Bureau fled to 
the fort at Ottawa, while those around Plainfield and Naper- 
ville took refuge at Fort Dearborn, but unhappily at Indian 
creek, under a treacherous sense of security, a few families 
paid no heed to the warning, and in a short time 70 painted 
savages came upon them and butchered 15 defenseless victims. 
Two boys escaped by flight, and two girls, Sylvia and Rachel 
Hall, were taken captive to the camp of Black Hawk. They 
were treated kindly, and soon ransomed through the influence 
of the Winnebagoes. 

The news of an Indian war on the frontier spread rapidly 
through every hamlet in the eastern states, and measures were 
promptly taken by the administration to meet the emergency. 
Nine companies were sent to the scene under command of 
General Scott. He arrived at Fort Dearborn at 2 o'clock on 
the morning of the 8th of July. The cholera had broken out 
among his men on the way, and the news of his arrival and of 



64 THE SAUK WAR. 

the fearful contagion he had brought soon spread through the 
village, and most of its inhabitants fled from the place before 
daylight.* 

While General Scott is detained at Fort Dearborn by this 
fatal duress, let us follow the fortunes of Black Hawk. 

The next day after the defeat of Stillman General White- 
side led his entire force to the scene. There were the tent 
marks of Black Hawk's army, and the lifeless bodies of 11 
victims divested of their scalps, which were doubtless dangling 
from the belts of as many Sauk warriors. But the wily Black 
Hawk had fled northward, whither was not known. 

The 2,400 men who had volunteered in the service had now 
seen enough Indian fighting to gratify their curiosity, and, 
their term of service having nearly expired, they were dis- 
charged and 2,000 more men recruited to fill their places. 

During the interim Black Hawk was busy with his scouting 
parties, chiefly aimed against the settlements around Galena. 
Many small skirmishes were fought in this direction, of which 
the attack on Apple .River fort on June 6th, where Elizabeth 
now stands, was the most notable. The place was besieged for 
a whole day, but the obstinate defenders showed no signs of 
yielding, and Black Hawk, who himself commanded the attack, 
retreated. On his way back to his headquarters on the 26th, 
at Kellogg's grove, he came in collision with a detachment of 
troops under Colonel Dement, numbering 150 men. The 
veteran chief tried to draw Dement into an ambuscade, which 
he barely escaped, and brought his men safely near the build- 
ings of Mr. Kellogg at the grove, taking refuge in them, from 
whence Black Hawk retired after an ineffectual attempt to dis- 
lodge them. A small number of men were killed on each side. 

After the failure of the first campaign, General Whitesides 
refused any command but enlisted in the ranks, and the new 
forces raised were divided into three divisions, to be com- 
pile stampede of the Chicago villagers is vouched for to the writer by 
. Benjamin Hall, who married a sister of Judge Caton. 



THE SAUK WAK. 65 

manded by General Alexander Posey, General Milton K. 
Alexander, and General James D. Henry, the whole under 
general command of General Brady. But the latter was soon 
disabled by sickness, and the chief command devolved upon 
General Atkinson. 

Seeing this formidable force arrayed against him, Black 
Hawk determined to retreat to the north and save himself by 
crossing the Mississippi river, but he was overtaken on the 
banks of the Wisconsin, at Blue Mounds, by General Henry's 
division, and a battle ensued July 21st, in which he lost 50 
men while crossing the river. 

Black Hawk continued his retreat after the battle till he 
was again overtaken, August 2d, near the mouth of Bad Ax 
river, in Wisconsin. A battle followed, in which nearly the 
entire remnant of Black Hawk's army were killed or drowned 
in attempting to cross the river. Black Hawk fled to Prairie 
La Cross, a Winnebago village, where he surrendered himself 
to Chaetar and One-eyed Decora, two Winnebago chiefs, who 
delivered him up to General Street, the Indian agent at Prai- 
rie du Chien, on the 27th of August. 

As soon as the cholera had partially subsided among the 
troops of General Scott, he moved his quarters from Fort 
Dearborn to the banks of the Desplaines river, where, after 
his soldiers had sufficiently recruited, he sent the main body, 
under command of Colonel Cummings, to the present site of 
Beloit, then a deserted Winnebago village.* 

Here instructions came from the general in chief command 

for the army to march down Rock river to Fort Armstrong, 

on Rock Island, to which place General Scott with his staff 

had arrived by a hasty march across the country by way of 

Naperville. -j- 

*R. N. Murray, who now lives in Naperville, was employed as teamster 
by Cummings on the march, and to him is the writer indebted for the loca- 
tion of the route taken. 

fFor the route of General Scott the writer is indebted to Louis Elsworth, 
of Naperville, who conferred with the general while at the place on his way. 
5 



66 BLACK HAWK A PRISONER. 

On the 10th of September the Indian prisoners were sent 
to Jefferson Barracks, just below St. Louis, from which place 
Black Hawk was sent to Washington, arriving there April 3d, 
1S33. On the 26th he was sent to Fortress Monroe, where he 
remained till the 4th of June, when he was returned to his 
people without further incarceration, for nothing worse than 
honorable warfare could be charged against him. On the way 
he was exhibited as a sort of lion in all the large cities through 
which he passed, and the winning smiles of the ladies show- 
ered on him were rewarded with compliments in broken 
Encrlish, amusing, earnest, and sometimes ludicrous. But the 
old veteran was not always flattering in his words. He 
prophesied that the white man would see the day that their 
courts of justice and their prisons would be insufficient to 
protect the community against the criminals that civilization 
encouraged and developed.* 

On his return he was restored to his tribe as a chief sub- 
ordinate to Keokuk. He died October 3d, 1835, at his home 
on the Des Moines river, Iowa, near the present village of 
Iowaville, in "Wappelo county. He was buried in a sitting 
posture, and a large mound raised over his grave, which still 
marks the resting place of him who may with propriety be 
called the last native defender of the soil of Illinois. These 
were the stirring events of Governor Keynolds' administra- 
tion, the like of which cannot be repeated for want of ma- 
terials. 

Zadoc Casey, the lieutenant governor, was elected to con- 
gress in 1832, and consequently resigned his position, where- 
upon L. D. Ewingwas chosen to fill his place. In 1S34 Gov- 
ernor Reynolds was elected to congress, which elevated Mr. 
Ewing to the governor's chair to fill the expiring term, which 
was only fifteen days. 

Joseph Duncan was elected governor in August, 1834, and 
inaugurated the succeeding November the 17th. Alexander 

*Drake. 



NEW STATE BANK. 67 

M. Jenkins was at the same time elected lieutenant governor. 
Under this administration a new state bank was chartered, 
with a capital of $1,500,000. By an act of the legislature 
March 4th, 1837, the capital stock of this bank was increased 
$2,000,000, which the state itself assumed, and also assumed 
stock of the Shawneetown branch of this bank to the amount 
of $1,000,000 more. The object of this financial scheme was 
to enable the state to build internal improvements for trans- 
portation by slack water navigation of the Wabash and Rock 
rivers, and also by means of railroads, the objects of which 
were to divert trade from St. Louis to Alton. The building 
of the Illinois and Michigan canal was also a cherished state 
policy. That these efforts were premature and in some direc- 
tions impracticable the suspension of specie payments by the 
banks in May, 1837, proved. The following July, at a special 
session of the legislature, the state came to the rescue of the 
banks and legalized their suspension. 

Thomas Carlin was elected governor in August, 1838, and 
inaugurated December 3d. Stinson H. Anderson was elected 
lieutenant governor. The state was then casting about in 
every direction for relief from the financial embarrassments 
which had lately presented such a barrier in her path. In this 
emergency, instead of retrenching taxation by abandoning a 
portion of the public works it had undertaken in order to 
assure the completion of at least a portion of them, by which 
to secure an income to the state, the legislature made additional 
appropriations, and extended its plans for public improve- 
ments into new channels not before contemplated. The gov- 
ernor was authorized to negotiate a loan of $4,000,000 for the 
single object of prosecuting work on the Illinois and Michi- 
gan canal, which was the only successful scheme that had yet 
been undertaken. Up to the following January, 1839, there 
had been but $1,400,000 expended on the canal. The onerous 
burden of state indebtedness, together with the advocacy of 
repudiation by a strong party had the effect to almost, if not 



68 FAILING OF STATE BANK. 

quite, destroy public confidence in the credit of the state. Of 
all the public works she had undertaken, the portion of the 
Northern Cross railroad from Meredosia to Springfield only 
was finished, it being put in operation November 8th, 1838 — 
the first in the state operated by steam power, but it was a 
pitiful showing for the immense expenditures that had been 
thus far dispensed with such prodigality. Its revenues could 
only come from local patronage, barely sufficient to pay its 
running expenses. After July, 1841, no further efforts were 
made to pay interest on the public debt,* and early the next 
year the state banks broke down completely.*}- The public 
debt then was $14,000,000 — a large sum for the young state 
in its poverty of both means and credit, and its bonds declined 
to 14 cents on the dollar, without buyers at even that price. 

While these financial questions were vexing the brains of 
Illinois financiers, there were other issues growing into prom- 
inence on the soil of Illinois destined to revolutionize the 
whole political fabric of the union. In the presidential can- 
vass of 1840 " log cabins and hard cider " were not the only 
things thought of. James G. Birney, a citizen of Fulton 
county, had the moral courage to allow himself to be the 
presidential candidate for the anti-slavery party. This was the 
first official action in the United States taken in this direction, 
and southern Illinois may in this justly claim the honor of 
being the cradle of that party crowned with success under 
another of her sons at a later date — Abraham Lincoln. 

Thomas Ford was elected governor in August, and inaug- 
urated December 8th, 1842. John Moore was elected 
lieutenant-governor. Happily for the welfare of the state 
one of the public works already begun had all the ele- 
ments of practical utility that the most exacting capitalist 
could ask. This was the Illinois and Michigan canal. The 
abandonment of all the others was a relief to the state, while 
its best hopes centered in the completion of this. To do this 
*Davidson and Stuve. fldem. 



MORMON TROUBLES. 69 

required $3,000,000, according to the original plan, which was 
to make it 40 feet wide at the bottom, 60 feet wide at the sur- 
face, and of a depth sufficient for six feet of water to flow from 
Lake Michigan directly into it through the summit between 
Lockport and Chicago. By reducing these dimensions to a 
shallow cut the work could be done for $1,600,000, and the 
canal could be supplied with water by a steam pump.* It 
now remained to negotiate the necessary loan to finish the 
canal as per the reduced dimensions. To accomplish this re- 
sult the following gentlemen met in council in the fall of 
1842: Arthur Bronson, of New York, and "Win. B. Ogden, 
Justin Butterfield and Isaac N. Arnold, of Chicago. At this 
meeting Mr. Bronson proposed to offer to the bondholders the 
canal and its revenues when finished, including its landed 
equities, as security for the advances required to finish it. The 
plan was timely, simple and just, and it only required the 
sanction of the state to put it into practice. Mr. Butterfield 
drew up the necessary bill for presentation to the legislsture, 
and Governor Ford used his influence in its favor. Mr. 
Arnold was then chairman of the committee on finance, and 
rendered essential service in the passage of the bill, which 
only escaped defeat by a small majority. Work was resumed 
on the canal as soon as the loan was obtained by the terms 
which the new bill made it legal to offer to the bondholders, 
which was not till 1845. The canal was finished April 19th, 
1848. 

Financial embarrassment was not the only thing against 
which Governor Ford had to contend. The Mormons had 
settled at Nauvoo in 1840, and early in his administration 
disturbances with them began. Acts of violence soon accu- 
mulated on both sides, till the Mormons left the state in the 
spring of 1846. 

The Mexican war was declared during his administration, 

*To E. B. Talcott and Gurdon S. Hubbard belongs the honor of first pro- 
posing this plan. 



70 CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION. 

and the first regiment of Illinois volunteers ever enrolled for 
field service was sent to this war. 

Augustus C. French was elected governor at the August 
election in 1846, and inaugurated December 9th. Joseph B. 
Wells was elected lieutenant governor. The Mexican war was 
then in full tide of progress, and five more regiments of Illi- 
nois volunteers were raised by the state for its service. The 
treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo, which bears date of February 
2d, 1848, established peace between the two belligerent na- 
tions, and the soldiers returned and were honorably discharged. 

On the 7th of June, 1847, a convention was held in Spring- 
field for the purpose of framing a new constitution. Its labors 
were concluded on the 31st of the following August, and the 
new constitution was ratified by a vote of the people in March, 
1848. By its provisions a new election of state officers was 
ordered. 

Governor French was reelected, which gave him two terms, 
though the first term was abridged to two years. Wm. Mur- 
try was lieutenant governor during his second term. Previous 
to the constitution of 1848 there had been no subdivision of 
counties into civil townships, and consequently no township 
organization. This machinery for the details of local govern- 
ment was authorized by the new constitution, and was per- 
fected in 1851, according to the system now in practice. The 
law of homestead exemption was also introduced the same 
year. 

Joel A. Matteson was elected governor in November, 1852, 
and inaugurated January 9th, 1853. G. Koerner was lieuten- 
ant governor. At the same general election for governor a 
new element in politics was evolved by making up a ticket for 
state officers representing the abolition party, at the head of 
which stood the name of Dexter A. Knowlton, candidate for 
governor, and Philo Carpenter, candidate for lieutenant gov- 
ernor. This was the first attempt to recognize this party 
politically in the state. It was unsuccessful, as the candidates 



E. B. WASHBUKNE. 71 

were not elected, but to offset the defeat a substantial victory 
to the anti-slavery cause was gained in November the same 
year by the election of E. B. Washburne to congress. This 
was accomplished by a union of the old whig party with the 
anti-slavery party. The victory thus accomplished was no 
barren one, for none knew better than Mr. Washburne how to 
make the most of it, and from it grew the events, step by step, 
which brought Abraham Lincoln before the people as an elo- 
quent exponent of the cause that Mr. Washburne's election 
had crowned with the prestige of victory and honored with 
his official service. 

Another notable event during Governor Matteson's admin- 
istration was a state law for the support of public shools, 
passed on the 15th of February, 1855. 

Win. H. Bissell was elected governor at the November elec- 
tion in 1856, and inaugurated January 12th, 1857. John 
Wood was elected lieutenant governor. It was during the 
eventful campaign of Buchanan and Fremont's presidential 
canvass. Mr. Bissell was a pronounced republican, and his 
election was a crushing blow to the old party in power. As 
might be supposed, his administration was a strong one, not 
only in both branches of the legislature, but political circles out- 
side contributed their share to keep the political cauldron boil- 
ing. In the winter of 1858-9 a United States senator was to 
be chosen to fill the place of Judge Douglas' expiring term. 
His reelection was looked upon to be a necessity to vindicate 
the position he had taken in destroying the Missouri Com- 
promise. Meanwhile the republican party were equally tena- 
cious to defend the position which they had taken antagonistic 
to the extension of slavery into new territories, and for an 
instrument wherewith to accomplish this result by the defeat 
of Douglas, their choice fell on Abraham Lincoln as a candi- 
date to oppose him for the senatorship. The joint debate 
between these two representatives of their respective parties 
forms an era in national politics not soon to be forgotten. Both 



72 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

were champions, and under their forensic power the issue 
gathered force throughout the length and breadth of the United 
States. Mr. Douglas won the election by a small majority in 
the legislature, while Mr. Lincoln had a small majority of the 
voters, but his very defeat crowned him with laurels. His 
native power had been shown, and that was all the real exi- 
gency demanded, as was proven by the sequel. 

On the 8th of March, 1860, Governor Bissell died, and 
John Wood, the lieutenant governor, served the ensuing ten 
months of the term. On the 16th of the following May the 
great republican convention met in Chicago. That this place 
was selected for it gave evidence of the commanding position 
of the state, especially in an issue which even then threatened 
the peace of the whole Union. On the third ballot at this 
convention Abraham Lincoln was nominated as the republican 
candidate for the presidency, and Hannibal Hamlin was nomi- 
nated as candidate for the vice presidency, when the conven- 
tion adjourned. 

Richard Yates was elected governor of Illinois at the autumn 
election of 1860, and inaugurated January 14th, 1861. Thomas 
Marshall was elected lieutenant governor. The alarms of civil 
war were even then sounding, but when Fort Sumter was fired 
on these alarms became realities. Then it was that our Illi- 
nois senator, Stephen A. Douglas, covered himself with glory, 
and honored his state by a hearty endorsement of Mr. Lin- 
coln's policy, and although he soon afterwards died, he had 
set a noble example of patriotism and magnanimity to his 
party, which had a most salutary effect on the state and on 
the issues of the war. 

The number of troops sent from Illinois to the field was 
185,941 infantry, 32,082 cavalry, and 7,277 artillery, making 
an aggregate of 225,300. Besides these, the array of Illinois 
men who acted as leaders of armies in the field or of public 
opinion in favor of the principles for which the Union armies 
were fighting, stands at the head of the list in the whole 



LINCOLN ASSASSINATED. 73 

United States, and furnishes an historical record worthy of a 
great state. The following are the prominent names of this 
list, to which large numbers might be added of less fame but 
equal merit as to zeal for the cause: Abraham Lincoln, Stephen 
A. Douglas, Ulysses S. Grant, John A. Logan, Elihu B. 
Washburne, Elmer E. Ellsworth, Colonel Mulligan, B. J. 
Sweet, Richard Yates, Richard J. Oglesby, John M. Palmer, 
John L. Beveridge, E. D. Baker, John F. Farnsworth, R. J. 
Ingersoll. 

Richard J. Oglesby was elected governor at the November 
election of 1864, and was inaugurated January 1865. Wra. 
Bross was elected lieutenant governor at the same time. Peace 
followed the next spring, and the ratification of the thirteenth 
amendment to the constitution of the United States, which 
abolished slavery, was promptly effected by the Illinois legis- 
lature. The following April, on the morning of the 15th, 
news came of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, which 
had taken place the evening previous at Ford's theatre. The 
name of the assassin was John Wilkes Booth. No state in 
the Union felt the force of this cruel blow more than Illinois. 
Mr. Lincoln was her honored son, her pride, and it was like a 
death in the family. The state was in mourning, business was 
laid aside in cities, and their stores were closed without wait- 
ing for public orders to do so, and grief and indignation took 
possession of every heart. 

John M. Palmer was elected governor of Illinois at the 
November election of 1868, and inaugurated January 11th, 
1869. John Doughterty was lieutenant governor The great 
feature of his administration was the convention which met 
in Springfield December 13th, 1869, to amend the constitu- 
tion of the state, which had not been changed since 1848. 
Mr. Kellogg speaks of the work this convention accomplished 
as follows: " In adopting the constitution of 1870 the people 
forbid special legislation, condemned loose methods of legis- 
lation, stopped reckless debt on the part of the state, county 



74 STATE INSTITUTIONS. 

and municipality, restricted very materially the power of the 
legislature, while enjoining particular radical changes, increased 
the reverence for law, the responsibility of those who admin- 
ister it, and gave to the minority in every county a voice in 
making the laws. No other state constitution embraces so 
many inhibitions, and none so many direct mandates. " 

Richard J- Oglesby was reelected governor in the autumn 
of 1872, and inaugurated January 13th, 1873. John L. 
Beveridge was elected lieutenant governor at the same time. 
January 23d Governor Oglesby resigned, and was elected to 
the United States senate. Mi-. Beveridge now became gov- 
ernor. Among the most important measures during his 
administration was one for reorganizing the state institutions, 
charitable, reformatory, and penal, of which the following are 
the names: Northern Hospital for the Insane, at Elgin; East- 
ern Hospital for the Insane, at Kankakee; Central Hospital 
for the Insane, at Jacksonville; Southern Hospital for the 
Insane, at Anna; Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, at 
Jacksonville; Institution for the Blind, at Jacksonville ; Asy- 
lum for Feeble-Minded Children, at Lincoln; Eye and Ear 
Infirmary, at Chicago; Illinois Orphan Home, at Normal; 
Industrial University, at Urbana; State Normal University, 
at Normal; Southern Normal University, at Carbondale; Illi- 
nois State Penitentiary, at Joliet; Southern Illinois Peniten- 
tiary, at Chester; State Reform School, at Pontiac. 

Shelby M. Cullom was elected governor in the fall of 1876, 
and inaugurated January 8th. 1877. Andrew Shuman, of the 
Chicago Evening Journal, was at the same time elected lieu- 
tenant governor. Great depression prevailed in financial 
circles at this time, as a consequence of the heavy failures of 
1873, the effect of which had seemed to gather force from 
that time to the end of Governor Cullom's first administra- 
tion. This unspeculative period was not calculated to call 
forth any new issues, but the governor's energies were at one 
time put to task to quell a spirit of insubordination that had 



STATE OUT OF DEBT. 75 

been begun in Pittsburg among the laboring classes, and 
transferred to Illinois at Chicago, East St. Louis and Braid- 
wood, at which places laboring men for a short time refused 
to work or allow others to work. These disturbances were 
soon quelled, and the wheels of industry again set in motion. 

Governor Cullom was reelected in the fall of 1880, and 
inaugurated January 10th, 1881. John M. Hamilton was 
elected lieutenant governor at the same time. The governor 
announced in his message that the last dollar of the state debt 
had been paid or provided for. The only amounts not paid 
were $23,000 due, upon which interest had stopped, and which 
had never been presented for collection and supposed to have 
been lost, and about $950,000 due from the state to the school 
fund, and which cannot be paid, as that fund only requires the 
interest on the amount. As the state annually collects for the 
school fund and pays out to the counties $1,000,000, it is 
simply a legal fiction to call this a debt. 

March 4th, 1883, the term of David Davis as senator from 
Illinois expired, and Governor Cullom was chosen to fill his 
place. This promoted Lieutenant Governor John M. Hamilton 
to the position made vacant by the resignation of Governor 
Cullom, and he is the present governor of Illinois. 



76 LEGISLATIVE DEPARTMENT. 



CHAPTER VII. 



STATE GOVERNMENT OF ILLINOIS. 

BY AARON W. KELLOGG. 

Blackstone defines law as " a rule of action"; civil law as a 
rule of civil action, prescribing what is right and forbidding 
what is wrong. 

The civil government of the state is established by the will 
of the people — by which word is meant male citizen of legal 
age — as expressed in a written constitution, voted for directly 
by the people, and in laws passed in conformity to that con- 
stitution by a general assembly, composed of two houses, the 
senate and the house of representatives, elected by the people 
from fifty-one separate districts. 

All laws to be valid must be passed by both houses in the 
way prescribed by the constitution, must be in accordance with 
its requirements, and not repugnant to the laws and constitu- 
tion of the United States. 

The powers of government of this state, like all others in 
civilized countries, are divided into three distinct departments, 
legislative, executive, and judicial, no one of which can inter- 
fere with either of the others. 

THE LEGISLATIVE DEPARTMENT. 

Of Election. — The powers and duties of the legislative de- 
jDartment are wholly defined in the state constitution; restric- 
tions upon its powers are provided both in the state and fed- 
eral constitutions. 

Elections of members of the general assembly occur bien- 
nially, on the years of even date, on Tuesday next after the 



ELECTIONS. 77 

first Monday of November. At each of these elections all the 
members of the house are elected, three from each district, 
and as nearly as possible one-half of the senators. The dis- 
tricts are reformed every ten years, on the year following the 
year of the federal census, and must be formed of contiguous 
territory, and, as nearly as may be, without dividing counties 
(except where a county is large enough for more than one dis- 
trict) of equal population. The number of districts cannot 
be increased or diminished. 

Members of the house are elected on what is called the 
" cumulative plan," a plan by which the political party which 
is in the minority in any district may elect one of the three 
representatives by concentrating their force, and hence is 
frequently called the " minority plan." This plan permits 
any voter to cast three votes for representative. He may cast 
all for one candidate, two for one and one for another, one for 
each of three, or one and a half votes for each of two can- 
didates. No other state in the Union has this cumulative 
plan of voting. In all elections the candidate receiving the 
highest number of votes is elected. 

Powers and Duties. — All laws passed by the general assem- 
bly must have been read in full on three separate days in each 
house, printed, and have received the affirmative votes of a 
majority of those elected to each house — that is, twenty-six in 
the senate and seventy-seven in the house, and the names of 
those voting must be entered on the journal. In addition to 
these constitutional provisions, each house adopts certain rules, 
which may be, and often are, suspended by a two-thirds vote. 
These rules provide, among other things, that bills shall be re- 
ferred to the standing committees of the house, where they 
are discussed, and amendments suggested and prepared, but no 
committee can do more than recommend action. It is also 
the duty, specifically, of the general assembly to appropriate 
money to carry on the state government, pass laws to provide 
a system of free schools, to regulate the charges of railroads, 



78 LEGISLATIVE RESTRICTIONS. 

to protect producers and shippers of grain, for inspection of 
grain, to raise revenue, to fix fees and salaries of officers, to 
provide for county and township organizations, and make cer- 
tain changes in the judicial system of the state. 

Limitations and Restrictions. — The theory of the legis- 
lative power is, and we derived it from the mother country, 
which has no written formal constitution, that a legislature 
may do anything not physically impossible. To obviate the 
difficulties which would grow out of the use of absolute 
power, all the states of the Union have restricted legislative 
power. Illinois stands in advance of all other states in the 
number of such limitations. The most important of these, 
next to those established by the " bill of rights," common to 
all written constitutions — no person shall be deprived of life, 
liberty or property, without due process of law, shall enjoy 
religious liberty, liberty of the press, trial by jury, may bear 
arms, may give bail when accused of all crimes except murder 
in the first degree, to freely assemble, petition, etc. — are: that 
all legislation shall be general, no special or local laws shall 
be passed; that lotteries or gift enterprises shall not be auth- 
orized; that no bill shall contain but one subject, and that 
shall be expressed in its title; no existing law shall be altered 
or amended by reference to its title, but the section amended 
must appear in the bill; that the canal shall not be sold or 
leased, nor more than three and a half million dollars ex- 
pended on the state house without a vote of the people; that 
counties and other localities shall not be authorized to vote 
aid to railroads or other enterprises, or exempt any property 
from taxation ; that no debt shall be authorized beyond 5 per 
cent, of the assessed valuation of the real and personal property 
of any county, city, town or district; that the general assembly 
shall not increase its own pay, or that of any officer of the state 
or county, and that it shall not assume the debt of any county. 

THE EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT. 

The executive department enforces and executes the will of 



EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT. 79 

the people as expressed in their constitution and laws, subject 
to such interpretation as tne judiciary may give. 

How Constituted. — The execution of the laws is placed in 
the hands of a governor, secretary of state, treasurer, attorney 
general, auditor of public accounts, superintendent of public 
instruction, and state board of equalization of assessments, 
elected by the people, all for four years except the treasurer, 
who holds his office for two years and cannot be his own suc- 
cessor, and in several boards of commissioners and trustees 
appointed by the governor with the approval of the senate. 

The "boards," which are all established by law, and are 
mere assistants of the governor in performing specific acts of 
duty and authority, are: Railroad and warehouse commission- 
ers, three members; commissioners of state charities, five 
members; health, seven members; education, fifteen mem- 
bers; penitentiary commissioners, three members; canal com- 
missioners, three members; fish commissioners, three mem- 
bers; pharmacy, five members; and boards of trustees for 
each state institution, three members. The state board of 
agriculture, twenty-one members, which belongs to the exec- 
utive branch, is elected by delegates selected by county and 
union agricultural societies, as prescribed by law. 

Duties. — The Governor is charged with seeing that the laws 
are faithfully executed; he must approve all bills before they 
become laws; appoint officers where no provision is made for 
their election, and, through the various boards of commission- 
ers and trustees, enforce laws and regulations in the various 
branches of the state government. He may remove officers 
for dereliction of duty; must approve of accounts other than 
regular salaries; is commander-in-chief of the militia, and 
commissions all officers. 

The Lieutenant Governor presides over the senate, but cannot 
vote except in case of a tie, and acts as governor in the absence 
from the state of that officer, or during his temporary inability 
to act, and become governor for the balance of the term of 



80 STATE OFFICERS. 

office in case of resignation, death, or removal from office of 
the governor. From the reports made to him by all other 
state officers, commissioners and trustees, all of which are 
printed, we derive most of the information which we have of 
the affairs of the state, its expenses, and what the money is 
expended for. 

The Auditor of Public Accounts stands between the people 
and the laws. No money can be drawn from the treasury but 
upon his warrant, and his duty is to see that the money has been 
appropriated by laws properly passed, and all accounts therefor 
properly certified and approved before he draws his warrant. 
He has also, by virtue of his office, charge of the insurance 
department of the state. To him all companies report, and 
receive from him authority to do business in the state. 

The Secretary of State keeps all the records. He must keep 
and preserve the journals of the general assembly, a roll of all 
laws passed, a register of all official acts of the governor, keep 
the great seal of state, attest all proclamations and commis- 
sions of the governor, certify to all copies of laws, issue all 
certificates of incorporation, and take charge of and preserve 
all the property of the state at Springfield. 

The Treasurer keeps the public funds and all moneys directed 
by law to be placed in his custody; he receives and pays out 
money only on the order of the auditor of public accounts. 

The Attorney General is the law officer of the state. He 
consults and advises state, county, and other officials on law 
points connected with their official duties, appears as counsel 
for the state in any courts, state or federal. He may attend at 
the trial of any person charged with crime, and direct the 
prosecution, and give opinion in writing to either branch of the 
general assembly, or its standing committees, when called for. 

The Superintendent of Public Instruction has charge of the 
educational interests of the state, gives counsel and advice to 
county and city superintendents, and works to elevate the 
standard of education and the qualification of teachers. 



JUDICIAL DEPARTMENT. 81 

The State Board of Equalization equalizes the assessments 
of real and personal property as made by the different counties, 
and assesses the capital stock of corporations, the tracks and 
rolling stock of railroads, and sends to each county clerk the 
result of their labors. The auditor is ex-officio the chairman 
of the board. 

THE JUDICIAL DEPARTMENT. 

The Judicial Power of the state is vested by the constitution 
in one supreme court, seven judges; four appellate courts, 
three judges each; circuit courts, a superior court of Cook 
county, a few city courts established by special acts previous 
to the adoption of the present constitution and retained by its 
provisions, probate courts in counties of one hundred thousand 
or more inhabitants, county courts, which are also courts of 
probate in all counties of less inhabitants than necessary to 
entitle them to probate courts, and justices of the peace. Every 
court except the latter has a clerk for the keeping of its records. 
The general duties of courts are to hear and determine issues 
between citizens, to try persons accused of crime, to construe 
the laws passed by the legislature, decide as to their constitu- 
tionality, and of probate courts to settle the estates of deceased 
persons and exercise a control over the property of minors. 
In the former cases mentioned, juries of the people, except 
explicitly waived by the parties, must hear the evidence, under 
direction of the court, and decide the matter. In construing 
and deciding the constitutionality of laws no jury is had. All 
laws are supposed to be constitutional until otherwise decided. 

Tenure of Office. — Judges, clerks, prosecuting attorneys 
and justices of the peace are elected by the people ; supreme 
judges for nine years, their clerks for six years, circuit judges 
for six years, and all other officers for four years, except the 
justices of the peace in Cook county, who are appointed by 
the governor, with the consent of the senate, upon the recom- 
mendation of the judges of that countv. 

6 



82 COUNTY OFFICERS. 

County Officers. — In addition to the officers mentioned, 
there are elected in each county, by the people, a sheriff, 
treasurer, county superintendent of schools, coroner, surveyor, 
and county attorney, who.e duties are readily understood. 
The county clerk is ex-officio clerk of the county court. The 
clerk of the circuit court is ex-officio recorder of deeds and mort- 
gages, except in counties of sixty thousand inhabitants, in which 
counties a recorder is elected. In counties which have adopted 
" township organization," the county affairs are managed by a 
board of supervisors, elected annually, but in townships of 
more than four thousand inhabitants additional ones, or assist- 
ant supervisors, are elected, according to population. The 
affairs of Cook county are managed by a board of fifteen com- 
missioners, a portion of whom are elected each year; but, as 
a part of the old system of township organization, township 
officers are elected annually in that county, including the three 
townships which make up the city of Chicago. In counties 
which have not adopted " township organization," the affairs 
are conducted by a board of county commissioners, consisting 
of three members. In New England the township was the 
unit of political power. This principle has spread west, like 
other New England institutions, and has become the rule in 
the northern portion of this state. 

Township Officers. — In counties under township organiza- 
tion there are elected each year, besides officers heretofore 
named, a town clerk, assessor, collector, highway commissioner, 
and every four years justices of the peace and constables, who, 
although elected in and by the voters of townships, have 
county jurisdiction. 

City Officers, etc. — All cities which are under the general 
incorporation act elect a mayor, clerk, attorney, treasurer, and 
not less than six aldermen for two years. The mayor appoints 
the other officers. Cities which are under old special char- 
ters elect such officers as their particular charters provide for. 
Villages elect a board of trustees each year. Townships elect 



VILLAGE OFFICERS. 83 

three school trustees to care for their school tunds, and scaool 
districts elect three directors, or six members of boards of 
education. It would seem that we have no lack of elections 
and officials. By the laws of Illinois, women are eligible to 
any school office. 

CONCLUSION. 

The preparation of these pages has been a labor of love by 
one inspired by unbounded admiration for a state great in all 
those things which awaken esteem and patriotic pride. 
We have a state great in area, of incomparable richness 
of soil, the productive capacity of which we have not yet 
fully tested. There is not on the face of the globe another 
tract of equal size, of equal productive capacity. It has 
nearly six hundred miles of navigable water boundary. Its 
extreme length from north to south gives it a variety of 
climate enjoyed by few other states in the Union. It is 
underlaid with coal sufficient to give it manufacturing power 
for millions who are to make it their home. Its progressive 
strides from a distant border to the position of a central state; 
from the seat of Indian trade in trinkets and furs to a great 
commercial center; from a territory to the foremost agricult- 
ural state in the Union, has been witnessed by many of her 
citizens who are still actively engaged in the persuits of every 
day life. Such is the condition of Illinois in 1883. 



84 FIRST MERCHANDISE. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



COMMERCIAL HISTORY OF ILLINOIS. 

No nation or state ever rose high in the scale of civilization 
whose commercial relations with the outside world were lim- 
ited, and it may with truth be said that nations rise in wealth 
and grandeur almost in proportion as they barter, buy and 
sell with other nations or states. 

The progress of Illinois in this direction has been marked 
by many a change in the varied history of the country. Buf- 
falo hides were the first articles of merchandise ever shipped 
from the Illinois country, and the export of these began about 
1720. They were sent down the Mississippi river to New 
Orleans, which had then just been laid out as a French village. 
A few years later wheat, flour, and other agricultural produc- 
tions followed in the same channel. The French fur traders 
came into Northern Illinois as early as the winter of 1674-5,* 
and bought furs of the Indians for the Canada trade, but this 
was not properly an export trade by white men, for these 
traders were employed by Canadian companies to do this work. 

Shortly after the English took possession of Illinois in 1765, 
the British board of trade took the subject under consider- 
ation of turning the trade of their French subjects here away 
from the French of New Orleans to the lakes and the St. 
Lawrence river, but nothing was ever done to accomplish such 

a result. 

Spain purchased Louisiana of France in 1762, which country 
then included the territory west of the Mississippi river and 

*See Marquette's Journal, written in "Chicagou," 1675, translated by J. 
G. Shea, and published in English in Dawson's Historical Mag., New York. 



SPANISH POLICY. 85 

New Orleans on its east bank. Shortly after the peace of 
Paris, in 1783, Spain closed the navigation of the Mississippi 
river against the commerce of the west,* which cut off her 
only available channel of communication with the sea, for the 
whole of Northern Illinois was then a desolate wild, and the 
shores of Lake Michigan could not be reached by the French 
of Illinois except by a long overland route across the prairies, 
over which neither roads had been built, nor had streams been 
bridged. 

In 1795 Spain agreed by treaty, negotiated October 27th by 
Thomas Pinkney on the part of the United States, to yield to 
the latter power the free navigation of the Mississippi,-!* but 
her procrastinating policy in relinquishing her forts on the 
banks of this stream, at Natchez and other places, delayed its 
fulfillment till the Spanish government retroceded Louisiana 
to the French in 1800, by the secret treaty of St. Ildefonso. 
This treaty was not published to the nations till two years 
later, the next year after which Louisiana was purchased ef 
the French by the United States, the treaty for which was 
ratified by congress on the 21st of October, 1803. 

From this time onward till the water craft of the lakes had 
reached Chicago as common carriers, which was in about 
1835, the export trade of Illinois went to New Orleans with- 
out hindrance, and even from this latter date (1 835) to the 

*When England conceded the Mississippi river as the western boundary of 
the United States at the peace of 1788, she also transferred to the new govern- 
ment her rights of navigating this stream. When this treaty was signed 
at Paris, it was done without the knowledge of the Spanish minister, who 
claimed for his government all the territory between the Alleghanies and 
the Mississippi. Spain thus balked in her ambition to secure the valley of 
the Mississippi to herself, was smarting under the sting of having been 
humiliated by the able diplomacy of American statesmen, which was the 
cause of her waywardness in excluding the Americans from navigating the 
Mississippi. Her excuse for this course was that England had transferred 
a claim to which she herself had no right, which was perhaps true, but it 
was in vain that the Spanish government protested against the new order 
of destiny that the fortunes of war had brought. 

fSee Treaty of San Lorenzo el Real, Am. State Papers, 1795. 



86 PIONEER RAILROADS. 

era of railroads, the Mississippi river was a more important 
channel of trade to the State of Illinois than the lakes. Mean- 
time the new motive power, destined to transcend both of the 
original channels of trade, was slowly and surely approaching 
the state from the Atlantic coast across the intervening 
country, studding its broad plains with towns in its course, 
and multiplying its wealth. 

The legislature of Illinois was composed of men of am- 
bitious purposes from the first, and this spirit seemed to gather 
strength as other states to the eastward set the example of 
building canals, and particularly railroads. 

The first official act here in this direction took place Janu- 
ary 28th, 1831, at which time an act was passed by the gen- 
eral assembly for the survey of a route for a canal or railroad 
in St. Clair county.* Other plans for public transportation 
by means of canals, slack water navigation and railroads, were 
subsequently chartered by the state, some of which were pre- 
mature, while others showed the wisdom and forecast of their 
architects. Of the latter sort the Galena & Chicago Union 
and the Illinois Central railroads were examples — the first as 
the pioneer east and west line through the state, and the last 
as the pioneer north and south line from the southern extrem- 
ity of the state to its great commercial emporium on the lakes 
and to its northwestern tangent. 

The Galena & Chicago Union railway company was incor- 
porated by an act of the legislature January 16th, 1836. The 
first ten miles of the road was finished from Chicago to Har- 
lem December 30th, 1848. The road was completed to the 
Mississippi river at Fulton December 10th, 1855. It was the 
first railroad that turned a locomotive wheel in the city of 
Chicago, and the first built in the state to connect the com- 
merce of the Mississippi to that of the lakes — the dream of a 
generation now fulfilled. In October, 1865, this road was 

*Sce paper read by W. K. Ackerman before the Chicago Historical So- 
ciety, February, 1883. 



LAKE MICHIGAN. 87 

consolidated with the Chicago & North-Western railway, but 
its original name will live in history, together with the faith 
which its builders had in Chicago when they began the work 
with but small means and slender patronage. 

The Illinois Central road was one that had been planned in 
the minds of the ablest men in Illinois as early as 1835. The 
canal connecting the lakes with the Illinois river was the 
original thought not only of Illinois statesmen, but its concep- 
tion was the admiration of the financiers throughout the north. 
As soon as provision had been made which should give this 
enterprise an assurance of success, the next thing to be done 
was to extend the means of transportation from the southern 
terminus of the canal at La Salle to the confluence of the Ohio 
and Mississippi rivers. On the 18th of January, 1836, the 
legislature took the business in hand and chartered a road for 
this purpose, but this and other attempts in the same direc- 
tion were failures till January 14th, 1851, at which time the 
present Illinois Central railroad was incorporated. It was 
finished to Dunleith June 12th, 1855, and to Chicago Septem- 
ber 26th, 1856.* Ere this time other trunk lines were 
traversing the state, and many more were under consideration. 

The Michigan Southern and Central roads were completed 
from the east to Chicago, the first in February and the last in 
May, 1852, which two were the great exemplary models after 
which so many rivals for eastern connections with Chicago 
have been built. The success which these first attempts 
achieved established a basis on which capital has ever since 
sought investment in Illinois, and established commercial re- 
lations between every section of this state and the world at 
large. 

Lake Michigan extends her waters over 400 miles south of 

the northern limit of the United States, which is. on the 49th 

parallel. The space thus crossed lies between the parallels of 

41° 30' and 49°, and on this broad belt between the Atlantic 

*Ackerman's Address. 



88 ILLINOIS THE COMMERCIAL FOCUS. 

and the Pacific chiefly lie the cities and the channels of travel 
between the east and the west. All these are forced around 
the southern extremity of Lake Michigan, mostly through 
Chicago, and thence across the state. Below Illinois there 
are no great trunk lines leading east and west, but from its 
southern portions the railroads take southwesterly, southern, 
and southeasterly directions, as from a common commercial 
centre of the United States. Such the physical forces of na- 
ture have made Illinois, and the lines of travel only act as 
auxiliaries to these forces. 

No attempt will here be made to even approximate the 
amount of wealth which has come to the state or grown up in 
its midst through the introduction of railroads. This has 
been shared by the land owners and the railroad companies. 
The laws of the state have regulated the prices for carrying 
passengers on the railroads, and made some general restric- 
tions as to the charges on freight, but a higher law than man 
can make has set limits to freight charges in the lakes and 
rivers that inviron the state. Added to these, the Illinois and 
Michigan canal, and the Hennepin canal when finished, will 
set at defiance any attempt on the part of the railroad com- 
panies to demand unjust charges should they be unwise enough 
to pursue such a suicidal policy. 

That the present financial condition of Illinois is one of 
unexampled prosperity must be apparent to every observer. 
The state is free of debt, and agriculture, the great interest of 
the state, is carried on by perfected machinery with surer 
rewards than ordinary mercantile investments in large cities, 
and the farmer stands as high in the social scale as the legis- 
lator or the professional citizen, nor is any class excluded from 
his society if clothed with the dignity of courtesy and intel- 
ligence, and # to abate these terms as requisite to good standing 
in society would be dangerous to the welfare of the rising 
generation. 



FORT DEARBORN BUILT. 89 



CHAPTER IX. 



CHICAGO. 

The city of Chicago and its immediate environs contains 
about one-fifth of the population of the whole state. It rep- 
. resents the interests not only of the entire state, but to a cer- 
tain extent those of the norther portions of the United States 
which are brought into commercial relations with her, and 
also the interest of the entire valley of the Mississippi, and 
Texas to a similar extent. Her name is older than her history. 
It was probably first applied to the place as the " Chicagou 
portage." There was but little attraction to bring the native 
population here to take up more than a transient residence, con- 
sequently it never became the seat of a large Indian village. 

In 1803, shortly after the purchase of Louisiana, the United 
States government formed the design of building a fort on the 
shores of Lake Michigan, and sent commissioners to select a 
site for the purpose. They selected the mouth of the St. 
Joseph river for the locality of it, but the Ottawas and Chip- 
pewas refused them the ground, and they next proceeded to 
the Chicago river, on the opposite side of the lake. Six miles 
square of land at the mouth of this river had been ceded to 
the United States by the Indians at the treaty of Greenville 
in 1795, and on this spot the fort was built. It was finished 
in 1804 and named Fort Dearborn. 

During the war of 1812 it was evacuated by its garrison on 
the 15th of May. A slaughter of the troops immediately 
ensued ere they had retreated more than two miles on their 
way to Fort Wayne, their point of destination.* 

*See Wabun. 



90 CHICAGO CHARTERED. 

The fort was rebuilt in 1816, and Chicago has ever since 
that time been a permanent residence of American pioneers 
and settlers. The next year, 1817, Messrs. Conant and Mack, 
fur traders at Detroit, established a branch at Chicago under 
the superintendence of John Crafts.* 

Soon after this the American Fur Company bought out the 
establishment, and employed Mr. Crafts in their service. This 
was the pioneer business house of Chicago, and its trade was 
Indian blankets and trinkets in exchange for furs. 

The Pottowattomies were then the all-prevailing power in 
Northern Illinois, there being no white settlers in the state 
north of Peoria except at Chicago. Fort Dearborn was always 
well garrisoned, and ever kept in readiness for an Indian out- 
break should such a calamity occur. 

In 1821 Chicago and its environs were surveyed in govern- 
ment sections. j- In 1829 Chicago was surveyed and platted 
into village lots, and a map of the town engraved in St. Louis 
the next year and published. August 10th, 1833, Chicago 
was incorporated as a village, and March 4th, 1837, was char 
tered as a city. Since that time the growth of the city has 
been more rapid than that of any other city in America, and, 
as far as known, than any other in the world. It now ranks 
as the third city in the United States in population, and sus- 
tains about the same grade as to business. The great modern 
event in its history is its fire of 1871, a description of which, 
by request, Mr. C. C. P. Holden, the president of the common 
council at the time of the fire, has kindly furnished the writer, 
as follows: 

Rufus Blanchwrd, Wheaton, Illinois: 

Dear Sir. — In accordance with your request, I submit herewith a state- 
ment compiled from such data as I consider nearly reliable touching the 
losses of both personal and real (buildings) estate destroyed by the great 
fire of October 8th and 9th, 1871. 

*This information is obtained from Gurdon S. Hubbard, who came to 
Chicago the next year, and still lives at the place. 

fCopies of these surveys are preserved at Handy & Co.'s, Chicago. 



THE GREAT FIEE. 91 

The fire destroyed the very heart of our city, taking in its general course 
all government, state, county, and a large portion of the municipal build- 
ings. In its devastating route it swept over 2,200 acres of soil, burning to 
destruction 15,768 buildings, 175 manufacturing establisbments, 121 miles 
of stone and other sidewalks, and 73 miles of streets were embraced in the 
limits of the vast conflagration. 

To enumerate the property destroyed by the fire Avould be an impossi- 
bility, but a tolerably close approximation of the losses can be furnished, 
and herewith I give you a statement as nearly correct as long research can 
make it. 

The United States government lost all its buildings, including the cus- 
tom house, and $2,130,000 in money. The city lost, in round numbers, 
more than $3,000,000 ; the county also, lost heavily. Then there were the 
' losses of the great trunk line railways, the chamber of commerce and the 
board of trade, warehouses and elevators, banking corporations and pri- 
vate bankers and brokers, insurance corporations, newspaper offices and 
effects, hotels and restaurants, opera houses, theatres and other places of 
amusement, churches, schools and other places of learning, the manufac- 
tories of all kinds, the vast shipping interest, including vessels, canal 
boats, tugs and dredges, flour, grain and provisions, the brewers, distillers 
and dealers in wines and liquors, business blocks, stores and dwellings, dry 
goods, groceries, hardware, iron safes and other metals, coal and wood, 
clothing, drugs, hats, caps and furs, books, stationery and paper stock, 
boots and shoes, furniture and bedding, pianos, organs and other musical 
instruments and music, millinery, jewelry, leather and harness material, 
tailors' supplies, paints and oils, livery and livery stock, libraries and paint- 
ings, and artist supplies, and all other kinds of business not herein enu- 
merated—a total of $187,927,000, made up as follows, to wit: 
15,768 buildings (and in this number were the business blocks, 
custom house, court house, city hall, newspaper offices, rail- 
road stations, depots and offices, hotels, churches, opera 

houses and theatres), and dwellings $49,239,000 

Household goods, silverware, etc 31,536,000 

Personal effects, including jewelry and money 19,840,000 

Flour, grain and provisions . 5,262,000 

Wholesale and retail business 46,645,000 

Manufacturers and shipping 14,055,000 

All other interest not herein enumerated, city losses ontside of 
city hall, public libraries, records, and miscellaneous of every 
description 21,350,000 

Grand total $187,927,000 

Thus it will be seen that the total losses by the great fire of 1871 were 
$187,927,000. The total valuation of taxable property in the city of Chi- 
cago, as assessed for the municipal year, 1871, was $289,746,470. The 
assessment was made for that year on the basis of 50 per cent, of the true 
valuation of the property thus assessed. Hence the real value of all taxable 



92 THE GREAT FIRE. 

property in the city for that year was $579,492,940, and thus was wiped 
out of Chicago's real wealth a little more than 32 per cent, of the same, 
which would be 185,487,740, leaving a margin of loss over and above this 
amount of $2,489,260. These great losses by fire, the like of which were 
never heard of before in this or any other country during the world's his- 
tory, were partially met by 201 insurance companies, which companies had 
at risk in the burnt district the sum of $100,225,780, of which amount they 
paid, according to approximation, the sum of $50,178,925, leaving a net 
loss to the burned out property owners of $137,748,075. Sixty-eight 
insurance companies, with assets of $24,867,109, were compelled to go into 
liquidation through losses sustained by the fire. Among the products of 
our soil, and which are enumerated in the above item as destroyed, maybe 
mentioned 15,000 barrels of flour, 4,000 tierces of lard, 1,500,000 lbs. cut 
meats, 6,000 barrels of pork, 2,400 tons broom corn. Finally, it is safe to 
say that on that fatal day in the history of Chicago fully one-third of all 
her real wealth was destroyed by the conflagration. Not only this, but 
there were rendered homeless by that terrible calamity more than 94,000 
souls, but sadder still is the fact, never to be forgotten, that, 300 human 
lives were sacrificed to the flames of that ever to be remembered day. 

Most respectf ully, 

CHARLES C. P. HOLDEK 
Chicago, Illinois, April 24th, 1883. 

The total of contributions that promptly came to Chicago 
for the relief of the sufferers was $4,820,148.16. Of this 
amount $973,897.80 was from foreign countries. The re- 
building of the burnt district was a wonder of no less mag- 
nitude than the fire itself. The business portion of the city 
now presents not only the appearance of newness, but the 
buildings are of the most approved pattern of architecture 
and convenience. By the census of 1880 her population was 
503,304, since which time there is evidence of increase in 
numbers in an equal ratio of that which has marked her 
growth since she was a village of two or three hundred per- 
sons in 1832. 



INDIAN NAMES IN ILLINOIS 93 



CHAPTER X. 



INDIAN NAMES IN ILLINOIS. 

BY E. M. HAINES. 

Algonquin. — A town in Illinois. The name of one of the 
principal groups of North American Indians, given to them 
by the French. Its meaning is in some doubt. It is derived 
from the Algonquin language, and is said to mean people of 
the other side, or opposite shore. 

Ashkum. — Alg. — A towji in Illinois; more and more. Thus 
Ashkum-ahkoose, he is getting worse (more sick). Ashkum 
Wabishkah, it is getting whiter. 

Appanoose. — Alg. — A town in Illinois. Name of an Indian 
chief of the Fox tribe. The grandchild. 

Cayuga {Gwe u-gweK) — Ira. — A town in Illinois, Mucky- 
land; from a tribe of Indians in New York of the Iroquois 
nation; they were called Gwe-u-gweh-o-no, "People of the 
Mucky land." 

Chebanse. — Avg. — A town in Illinois; Little Duck, from 
an Indian chief of that name. 

Chemung. — Irq. — A town in Illinois; from a river of that 
name in New York, signifying big horn, so named by the In- 
dians from finding in the bed of the river a fossil elephant's 
tusk. 

Chicago. — The word Chicago is understood to be an Indian 
word; at least it is derived from that source. What its pre- 
cise meaning is, or whether it has any particular meaning at 
all in its present form as now applied, is a matter of consid- 
erable dispute among those who have given the subject atten- 



94 INDIAN NAMES IN ILLINOIS. 

tion. The word comes to us through the early French ex- 
plorers of the west as an Indian word, from the language of 
the Algonquin group. "Wliilst this group of the North 
American tribes had one general or generic language by which 
they were distinguished, each tribe had its dialect, differ- 
ing more or less from that of the other tribes of the same 
group. The standard or parent language, however, since this 
people became known to the whites, was that spoken by the 
Ojibways (Chippeways), the most powerful and numerous of 
the various tribes of this group. Those who pretend to make 
any positive assertion as to the correct meaning of this word 
as an Indian word, seem to have confined their investigations 
on the subject to the Indian language as spoken by the Ojib- 
ways, without reference to other dialects, seeming to ignore 
the fact that it could come from any other source, whereupon 
they reach the conclusion, and so assert, that it means onion, 
garlic, leek, or skunk. So far as appears at this day. there 
seems to have been no special inquiry into the origin or mean- 
ing of this word until about the time of the rebuilding of 
Fort Dearborn in 1S16. The year following that event Colonel 
Samuel A. Starrow visited this place, and in a letter to Gen- 
eral Jacob Brown, of the United States army, refers to the 
river here as " the River Chicago (or in the English — wild 
onion river)." Mr. Schoolcraft, the Indian historian, in his 
" Narrative of an Expedition to the Sources of the Mississippi 
River in 1820," in giving an account of visiting Chicago on 
the return of said expedition, speaking of the Chicago river, 
says: •• Its banks consist of a black arenaceous fertile soil, 
which is stated to produce abundantly, in its season, the wild 
species of cepa or leek. This circumstance has led the natives to 
name it the place of the wild leek. Such is the origin ot' the term 
Chicago, which is » derivative by elision and French annotation 
from the work chi-kauy-ong. Kaug is the Algonquin name 
for the hystrix or porcupine. It takes the prefix, chi, when 
applied to the mustelapntorras (pole-cat). The particle, chi, 



INDIAN NAMES IN ILLINOIS. 05 

is the common prefix of nouns to denote greatness in any- 
natural object, but it is employed as here to mean the increase 
or excess, as acridness or pungency in quality. The penulti- 
mate ong denotes locality. The putorious is so named from 
this plant." Bishop Baraga, in an appendix to his Ojibway 
dictionary, says the word Chicago is a word in the Cree 
dialect, a tribe of the Algonquin group called also Knistenos. 
" From Chicag or Sikag, a skunk, a kind of wildcat, 
which, at the local term, makes Chicag ok. ^ In his dictionary- 
mentioned he defines an onion in the Ojibway dialect as 
''kitchijigagmanj (French orthography), English orthography, 
kit-che-zhig-a-gam-anzh. The definition of onion by Rev. 
Edward F. Wilson in his dictionary of the Ojibway language 
is keche-she-gaug-uh-wunzh. He defines skunk as zhe gaug. 
John Tanner, for thirty years a captive among the Ojibways, 
and many years United States Indian interpreter, in a " Cata- 
logue of Plants and Animals found in the country of the 
Ojibways, with English names." appended to the narrative of 
his captivity, defines skunk as she-gahg. He defines onion as 
she-gau-ga-winzhe (skunk-weed). In a note therto by Dr. 
James, editor of Tanner's narrative, it is added: " From shih- 
gau-ga-winzhe, this word in the singular number, some derive 
the name Chicago." The Indians it seems, at least the Ojib- 
ways, called the onion, garlic, and other weeds of like odor 
by a name which signified skunk-weed, and in the Ojibway 
language the words used so express it. It is noticed that all 
who contend that the word Chicago, as applied to the river and 
city of that name, means skunk, onion or the like, derive their 
convictions on the subject from one or more of the authorities 
which are before cited, or from some one familiar with the 
Ojibway language, who forms his convictions to the same 
effect from the mere coincidence of sounds. History is so 
unsatisfactory and varied in regard to this word, that we are 
left at this day to determine its meaning solely upon the basis 
of similarity of sounds. For there seems to be no fact or 



96 INDIAN NAMES IN ILLINOIS. 

incident narrated or mentioned in history that leads with any 
degree of certainty either to the original meaning of this 
word as intended, or to the dialect from which it is derived. 
And it is to be confessed that upon the theory aforesaid, con- 
ceding that the word comes from the Ojibway language or 
dialect, no one is prepared to dispute the assertion so gener- 
ally made that the word is derived from skunk. The word 
skunk being in the Indian tongue simply she-kaug. In order 
to make Chi-cag-o, the theory adopted is that ong, an Ojibway 
local termination is added, which makes Chi-cag-ong, meaning 
at the shank, the sound of ng being dropped in common 
speech, leaving the word in the form now used. Whilst this 
is not inconsistent in practice in dealing with Indian names, 
there is another theory, it is suggested, which may be adopted 
in this connection that would seem to be equally consistent. 
The word OM-ca-go, without adding ng, would be a fair Ojib- 
way expression. The sound of o added would denote the 
genitive, and might be rendered thus, Mm of the skunk, in 
which case it would probably be the name of an individual, 
and it is stated that this word is the name not only of some 
one Indian chief, but the name also of a line of chiefs during 
several generations. It is to be remarked, however, that there 
are some facts in history in regard to this word not in har- 
mony with the definition generally contended for, as before 
stated. The word is first mentioned in early western history 
by Hennepin, in his account of La Salle's expedition which 
he accompanied, chapter 34 (London edition, 1699), the head- 
ing of which is as follows: " An account of the building of a 
new fort on the river of the Illinois, named by the savages 
Che-cau-gou, and by us Fori Creveco&ur." This was in Janu- 
ary, 1680. This fort was at or near the place where Peoria 
in this state now stands. We must believe that the Indian 
word mentioned, given by the savages as their name for this 
fort, could not in this connection mean skunk nor skunk- 
weed. The definition of the French word mentioned would 



INDIAN NAMES IN ILLINOIS. 97 

mean " broken heart.' 7 Hennepin remarks that the many dif- 
ficulties they labored under had almost broken their hearts. 
May we not therefore suppose that the Indian word thus ap- 
plied was intended to be of similar import? The name Ohe- 
ka-gou thereafter appears on a map by Franquelin in 1684, 
applied to a river putting into the Des Plaines from the east 
at -a point just above the Kankakee river, while at the head of 
Lake Michigan on this map is the work Checago umeinan. 
At a latter date what is now called the Desplaines river was 
called by the early French explorers the river Chekagou. This 
word as a local name did not, as would appear, reach the river 
at present so named, nor the point where Chicago now is, until 
at least thirty years after the time of Hennepin, as before 
mentioned, and of the circumstances under which this word 
was lastly so applied, from what dialect it came, or what its 
intended meaning was, if any, in its changed application, no 
account whatever is transmitted to us. The most that can be 
said of the word with any degree of certainty is that it is of 
Indian origin, and comes from some dialect of the Algonquin 
group, so called. It must be noted, however, that in the Ojib- 
way dialect this word, or that which is essentially the same, is 
not confined in its meaning to that contended for, as before 
mentioned. The word may mean also in that language to 
forbear, or avoid, from kah-go, forbear, and ohe, a prefix an- 
swering to our preposition to, or it may mean something great, 
from ka-go, something, and chi, from git-che, great. Besides 
several other words or expressions which may be found in tin's 
dialect of the same sound, yet of different meanings, Che-ca- 
gua was the name of a noted Sac chief, and means, in that 
dialect, he that stands by the tree In the Pottawattomie dia- 
lect the word choe-ca-go, without addition or abridgement, 
means destitute. Now, if this word was applied to the river 
which at present bears this name from the local circumstance 
as claimed, that of the abundance of skunk-weed upon its 
banks, it would seem to follow that it must have been so given 



98 INDIAN NAMES IN ILLINOIS. 

by the tribe who then inhabited or dwelt in the vicinity. At 
the time this word first appeared in this locality, the country 
about was inhabited, we are informed, by the tribe of Miamis 
in whose dialect the word for skunk or pole-cat was se-kaw- 
kwaw. The Miamis, it seems, were succeeded by the Potta- 
wattomies. We have no account from any source that the 
Ojibway nation, from whose dialect the attempt is made to 
define the meaning of this word, ever inhabited this part of 
the country. Mr. Hurlbut, in his book of Chicago Antiqui- 
ties, refers to an article in Potter's American Monthly, 
wherein it is stated that in early days this place was called 
" Tuck Chicago," and in which it is said that "Tuck in the 
Indian dialect means wood or timber;" that the word Chicago 
means '•''gone, absent, or without /" that the words Tuck Chicago 
signified the waste prairie, or, literally translated, wood gone. 
The Indian dialect referred to, it is understood, has reference 
to that of the Pottawattomies. It is true that there was 
originally considerable tree growth along the river, particu- 
larly on the north side, at what we now call Chicago, but it 
was in the main a naked prairie, which would make the name 
" Tuck Chicago " (wood gone) in the Pottawattomie dialect 
worthy of consideration among the various other speculations 
cited from their respective authorities. It will be observed 
that each of the theories adduced in this article has its author- 
ity, and from them all the antiquarian may form his opinion 
as to the origin of the name of the city in question. 

Gteneseo [Gen-nis-heyo) — Irq. — A town in Illinois. Beau- 
tiful Valley. The name of a river in New York, so named 
by the Iroquois from the beautiful valley this river passes 
through. 

Iroquois. — The name of a river and county in Illinois. 
The word is derived from the name given by the French 
to the Five Nations of Indians about Lake Ontario. The 
first negotiations of the French in settling the country along 
the River St. Lawrence were with the natives in the vicinity 



INDIAN NAMES IN ILLINOIS. 99 

known as the Five Nations and the Hurons or Wyan- 
dottes, so called, all speaking the same generic language. 
It was noticed that these tribes in theL- councils always 
closed their speeches with the word or exclamation " Hiro!" 
like dixi of the Latin. They also used on public or other 
occasions, when circumstances seemed to demand it, an ex- 
clamation or word, " Kouai," as an expression of warning, 
something in the sense we would use the word "Beware!" 
The frequent use of these words or exclamations, from the cir- 
cumstances attending, seemed to have attracted the special 
attention of the French, so that in speaking of them, or in 
giving them a designation, they spoke of them as the Hiro- 
Kouai, or, in the French orthography, Hiro-Quois, which in 
time passed into the present word, Iroquois, by simply drop- 
ping the sound of H in common speech. 

Illinois. — From the Algonquin word inini, or illini, "man," 
and French adjective termination ois. The French substituted 
I for n. From tradition, it was intended to mean or have ref- 
erence to a perfect man, as distinguished from the Iroquois 
nation, who were considered by the western tribes as beasts. 
Marquette, in descending the Mississippi, touched on the west 
bank of that river at a place near the mouth of the Des 
Moines, where he found marks of inhabitants, which he pur- 
sued westward a few miles, when he arrived at an Indian village, 
where he was received with demonstrations of great friendship. 
He communicated with the inhabitants, it would appear, in the 
Algonquin language, but as their dialect differed from that of 
any of the tribes he had before met with, he asked the chief 
who received him who they were. He answered in the Al- 
gonquin language, "We are men," as distinguished from the 
Iroquois, whom they looked upon as beasts in consequence of 
their cruel conduct in their invasions upon the western tribes. 
Hence the term Inini, " man," or as the French rendered it, 
Illini. Thereafter the tribes of this vicinity became known 
among the French as Illinese or Illinois. 



100 INDIAN NAMES IN ILLINOIS. 

Kewanee.- — Alg. — A town in Illinois. Prairie hen. 

Kickapoo. — Alg. — A town in Illinois. The name of one 
of the Algonquin tribes of the west, jestingly applied by 
others of the same stock. From Negik-abos — an otter's ap- 
parition — ghost of an otter. 

Kishwauke. — Alg. — A river in Illinois. Place of sycamore 
trees. 

Moccasin. — Alg. — A town in Illinois. A shoe. 

Manito. — Alg.- — A town in Illinois. Spirit. By the early 
French travelers, Manitou. 

Mascoutah. — Alg. — A town in Illinois. From mascoda, 
" prairie." 

Moawequa. — Alg. — -A town in Illinois. Weeping woman; 
she that weeps. 

Mokena (Mok-e-na) — Alg. — A town in Illinois. Turtle. 

Neoga. — Irq. — A town in Illinois. Place of the Great Spirit. 

Nokomis. — Alg. — A town in Illinois. Grandmother. 

Nunda. — Irq. — A town in Illinois. Hills. 

Osage. — Alg. — A town in Illinois. Miami dialect. The 
Neutral. The name of a tribe of Indians. 

Oquaka. — Alg. — Sac dialect. Atowninlllinois. Yellowearth. 

Oswego (O-Sweh-go) — Irq. — -A town in Illinois. Flowing 
out. This name was given by the Iroquois to the place at the 
mouth of the river, since called by that name, in the state of 
New York. 

Ottawa. — Alg. — A town in Illinois. Trader. Name of a 
tribe of Indians whom the French designated as the traders. 

Peotone {Pe-tone) — Alg. — A town in Illinois. Bring — 
bring here. 

Somonauk (Es-sem-in-auk) — Alg. — A town in Illinois. 
Paw Paw tree. 

Tonica. — Alg. — A town in Illinois. A place inhabited. 

Tuscola. — Apl. — A town in Illinois. A level plain. 

Wapella. — Alg. — A town in Illinois. From an Indian 
chief of the Fox tribe. He who is painted white. 



INDIAN NAMES IN ILLINOIS. 101 

"Waukegan ( Wau-ki-e-gan) — Alg. — A town in Illinois. A 
house, or fort. The place where this town is situated was 
originally called Little Fort. It seems to have been a French 
trading jx st of minor importance — probably established about 
the year 1720, or at some time in the early part of that cen- 
tury. The occasion of selecting this point as a post seems to 
have been two-fold. It was in the vicinity of excellent hunt- 
ing and trapping grounds, especially the latter, and was found 
to be the nearest point of any for reaching the Desplaines 
river from Lake Michigan, where in a good stage of water a 
short, easy portage could be made on the route to the' Illinois 
and Mississippi rivers, saving about forty miles of lake coast, 
necessary in going by way of Chicago. It was continued as 
a French post until probably about 1760. After the English 
succeeded to the country the point became known as The 
Little Fort, and the town subsequently built up here took that 
name. Judge Blodgett, now of the United States Court, be- 
coming a resident of the place, and having a fancy for Indian 
names, suggested that the name of Little Fort be changed by 
substituting an Indian name signifying the same thing. The 
diminutive of nouns in the Algonquin language is formed by 
adding the syllable arise, so that Little Fort in that language 
would be Wau-ki-e-ganse / but for the purposes of euphony 
the name adopted was Waukegan, which would signify simply 
Fort or House. Although the pronunciation is not precisely 
the same as the Indian word intended, yet it is nearer to that 
intended than the so-called Indian names generally are. The 
Indians designated a fort or dwelling of the white man by the 
same name. The original dwellings of the whites among them 
were buildings for trading posts, built in a style for protection, 
and were called forts by the French. 

Wauconda. — Dak. — A town in Illinois. The Good Spirit. 

Winetka. — Alg. — A town in Illinois. A beautiful place. 

Wtanet. — Alg. — A town in Illinois. Beautiful. 



102 CLASSIFICATION. 



CHAPTER XL 



INDIAN TRIBES OF ILLINOIS. 

TAKEN FROM HISTORIC NOTES OP THE NORTHWEST 
BY H. W. BECKWITH. 

The Miamis, Illinois, Winnebagos, Sacs and Foxes, Kicka- 
poos, Pottawattomies, and Shawneese, are the names of the 
native tribes who have occupied the soil of Illinois within the 
historic period of the state. 

The Winnebagos were of the Sioux stock; all the others 
were of the Algonquin, their language being similar. The 
Iroquois were essentially different in their language as well as 
in their public policy, being more aggressive and less suscep- 
tible to religious teaching, but perhaps more progressive in 
civilization. Between them and the tribes of Illinois there was 
from the first an enmity, which became augmented by the 
rival interests of the French of Canada and the English colo- 
nists along the Hudson river. The Iroquois, who held all the 
territory between the Hudson river and Lake Erie, were im- 
portant factors in the hands of the English wherewith to 
secure the western fur trade, while the French of Canada had 
advanced up the lakes to secure not only the fur trade, but the 
country itself as a province of France. 

The Sioux or Dakotas west of the Mississippi were an- 
other classification of tribes, and may be set down as the most 
heroic of all, they never having been conquered on the field of 
battle by either other native tribes or even by the armies of 
the United States, as the fate of Custer's army in 1879 gives 
melancholy experience. 



ILLINOIS TKIBES. 



103 



The Illinois Indians were composed of five subdivisions: 
Kaskaskias, Cahokias, Tamaroas, Peorias and Metchigamis, 
the last being a foreign tribe from west of the Mississippi 
river, who having been reduced to small numbers by wars with 



j^swmMii 'Hill 

jiiciiiGjy 

-\\ ' i ' 11'// " 




SHOTVIN 

INDIAN 



104 ILLINOIS TKLBES. 

their neighbors, abandoned their former hunting grounds and 
became incorporated with the Illinois. The first historical 
mention of the Illinois is found in the " Jesuit Relations for 
the year 1670-1," prepared by Father Claude Dablon, from 
the letters of priests stationed at LaPointe, Lake Superior, 
where the French had a trading post. Says the Father: " The 
first who came to the Pointe of the Holy Ghost (meaning the 
Mission) for commerce called themselves Illinois." In the 
" Jesuit Relations," and in the writings of other French 
authors, the name Illinois is variously spelled as " Illi-mouek," 
" Ill-i-no-u-es," " Ill-i-ne-wek," " Allini-wek," and "Lin-i- 
wek." The terminations oues, wek,ois, and ouek were almost 
identical in pronunciation. Lewis Evans, the great geogra- 
pher in colonial days, spelled the name "Will-i-nis. Major 
Thomas Forsyth, for many years trader and Indian agent in 
the Illinois Territory, and stationed at the French village of 
Peoria, says the " Illinois confederation call themselves Linni- 
wek, and by others they were called Min-ne-way." Both Mar- 
quette and Hennepin spelled the name Illinois as we do now. 

The Illinois confederation claimed the country bounded on 
the east by the ridge that divides the waters flowing into the 
Illinois from those flowing into the Wabash, between the 
headwaters of Saline creek and a point as far north on the 
Illinois as the Desplaines, reaching northward to the debatable 
ground between themselves, the Winnebagos, the Sacs and 
Foxes, and the Kickapoos, and extending westward of the Mis- 
sissippi. Their favorite and most populous villages were upon 
the Illinois, the Desplaines and the Kankakee, but the Sioux 
(Da-ko-ta) pressed them from the west, the Sacs and Foxes 
and Kickapoos, confederates, encroached upon their territory 
from the north, while war parties of the Iroquois, coming 
from the east, rapidly decimated their numbers. These de- 
structive raids were doing their fatal work, and the power of 
the Illinois was waning when the French first came in contact 
with them. 



ILLINOIS TRIBES. 105 

The building of Fort St. Louis upon the heights of Starved 
Rock by La Salle, in 1682, gave confidence to the Illinois and 
their scattered remnants who had again returned to their 
favorite village. They were followed by bands of Weas, Pi- 
an-ke-shas, and Mi-am-ies, near kinsmen of the Illinois, and 
by the Shawnees and other tribes of remoter affinity, and soon 
a cordon of populous towns arose about the fort. The mili- 
tary forces of these villages at the colony of La Salle, in 1684, 
was estimated at 3,680 fighting men, the Illinois furnishing 
more than one-third of this number. Thus were the Iroquois 
barred out of the country of the Illinois, who, for a season, 
enjoyed a respite from their old enemies. The abandonment 
of Fort St. Louis as a military post, in 1702, was followed by 
a dispersion of the tribes and fragments of tribes, except at 
the Illinois village, where a straggling population retained 
possession. The Kaskaskias learning, in the year 1700, that 
France was making a military establishment and colony near 
the mouth of the Mississippi, started thither. They were 
intercepted on the way, and persuaded to halt above the mouth 
of the Ohio, and soon thereafter made themselves a permanent 
home on the banks of a stream which since then has borne 
their name, the Kaskaskia. 

The Iroquois came no more, having war enough on their 
hands nearer home, but the Illinois were constantly harrassed 
by other enemies, the Sacs and Foxes, the Kickapoos, and the 
Pottawattomies. Their villages at Starved Rock and at Peoria 
Lake were besieged by the Foxes in 1722, and a detachment 
of 100 men, commanded by Chevalier d'Artaguiette and 
Sieur de Tisne, was sent from Fort Chartres to their assist- 
ance. The Foxes having lost more than a hundred of their 
men, abandoned the siege before the reinforcements arrived. 
"This success (says Charjevoix, the great French historian) 
did not, however, prevent the Illinois, although they had lost 
only twenty men, with some children, from leaving the Rock 
and Pim-i-toey (Peoria Lake)^ where they were kept in con- 



L06 M1AMIS. 

stani alarm, and proceeding to unite with those of their 
brethem (the Kaskaskias) who had settled upon the Missis- 
sippi. This was a stroke of grace for most of them, the small 
number of missionaries preventing their supplying so many 
towns scattered far apart; but, on the other side, as there was 
nothing to check the raids of the Foxes along the Illinois 
river, communication between Louisiana and New France 
(Canada) became much less practicable.'' 

The next fifteen years show a further decline in their num- 
bers. In an enumeration of the Indian tribes connected with 
the government of Canada, prepared in the year 1736, the 
name, location, and number of fighting men of the Illinois 
are set down as follows: " Mitchigamias, near Fort Chartres, 
250; Kaskaskies, six leagues below, 100; Peorias, 50; the 
Cahokias and Tamarois, 200 ;" making a total of 600. The 
killing of Pontiac, some thirty years later, at Cahokia, whither 
lie had retired after the failure of his bold efforts to rescue the 
country from the British, was laid upon the Illinois, a charge 
which, whether true or false, hastened their destruction. In 
an official letter to the secretary of war, of date March 22, 
1814, General "Wm. H. Harrison says: "When I was first 
appointed governor of the Indiana Territory (May, 1S00), these 
once powerful tribes were reduced to about 30 warriors, of 
whom 25 were Kaskaskias, 4 Peorias, and a single Mitchi- 
gamian. A furious war between them and the Sacs and Kick- 
apoos reduced them to that miserable remnant which had taken 
refuge among the white people in the towns of Kaskaskiaand 
St. Geniveve." Since 1800, by successive treaties, they ceded 
their lands to the United States, and were removed to reser- 
vations lying southwest of Kansas City, where, in IS 72, they 
had dwindled to 40 persons, men, women and children, all told. 

THE MIAMIS. 

This tribe formerly lived beyond the Mississippi river, 
whence their progress eastwardly was through Wisconsin and 



MIAMIS. 107 

Illinois, and around the southern extremity of Lake Michi- 
gan to Detroit, thence down the Detroit river and up the 
Maumee through Indiana into Ohio. That they originally 
sprang from the same stock as the Illinois is the opinion of 
the early writers on the subject, and General Harrison, even 
at his late historic date says: "Although the language, names 
and customs of the Kaskaskias make it sufficiently certain 
that they derive their origin from the same source with the 
Miamis, the connection had been dissolved before the French 
had penetrated to the Mississippi. 

The Miami confederation was subdivided into four princi- 
pal bands, since known under the name of Miamis, Eel-Rivers, 
Weas, and Piankeshaws. The Miamis proper have by differ- 
ent writers been called " Ou-mi-a-mi," " Ou-mi-ain-wek," 
• l Mau-mees," " Au-mi-am-i " (which has been contracted to 
" Au-mi " and to " O-mee "), and " Min-e-am-i." The Weas, 
whose name more properly is " We-we-hah," is called " 8y-a- 
ta-nous," " Oui-at-a-nons," and " Ou-i-as " by the French, and 
in whose orthography the " 8y " and " Ou " are equivalent in 
sound nearly to the letter of the English W. The British and 
colonial officers and traders spelled the word " Oui-ca-ta-non," 
" Way-ough-ta-nies," u Waw-i-ach-tens," and " We-hahs." 
The name Piankeshaws, in early accounts, figure as " Pou-an- 
ke-ki-as," " Pe-an-gui-chias," " Pi-an-gui-shaws," " Py-an-ke- 
shaws," and u Pi-an-qui-shaws." The Miami tribes were 
known to the Iroquois of Xew York as the Twigh-twees, a 
name generally used by the British as well as by the Ameri- 
can colonists when referring to any of the Miami tribes. 

In the year 1684, at La Salle's colony at Starved Rock, the 
Miamis had populous villages, where the Miamis proper 
counted 1,300, the "Weas 500, and the Piankeshaw band 150. 
At a later day, 1718, the Weas had a village " at Chicago, but 
being afraid of the canoe people (the Chippeways and Potta- 
wattomies), left it, and passing around the head of Lake Michi- 
gan to be nearer their brethren farther to the east." Father 



108 



MIAMIS. 



Charlevoix, writing from this vicinity, in 1721, says: " Fifty 
years ago the Miamis (L.e, the "Wea band) were settled on the 
southern extremity of Lake Michigan, in a place called Chi- 
cago, from the name of a small river which runs into the lake, 




POTTAWATTOMIES. 109 

the source of which is not far distant from that of the river of 
the Illinois (meaning the Desplaines, which is the name by 
which it was often called in French authorities)." 

The country of the Miamis extended west to the watersned 
between the Illinois and Wabash rivers, which separated their 
possessions from those of their brethren, the Illinois. On the 
north were the Pottawattomies, who were slowly but persist- 
ently pushing their line southward through Wisconsin and 
around the west shore of Lake Michigan. 

It was only the Piankeshaw band of the Miamis that occu- 
pied portions of Illinois subsequent to the dispersion of La 
Salle's colony about Starved Pock. The principal villages of the 
latter were upon the Vermilion river and at Vincennes, Ind., and 
its environs. Their territory extended eastward to the Ohio 
river and westward to the ridge that divides the waters flowing 
respectively into the Kaskaskia and the Wabash. They were 
found by French officers in populous towns upon the Vermilion 
as early as 1718; later they pushed the degenerating Illinois 
bands to the vicinity of Kaskaskia and neighboring villages, 
and hunted and dominated over the territory to the Mississippi, 
as high up, nearly, as the mouth of the Illinois. 

THE POTTAWATTOMIES. 

The first mention of this tribe is in the " Jesuit Relation" 
of 1639. They were then reported on the north bank ot 
Lake Huron. Twenty-six years later they were reported on 
the west bank of Lake Michigan. In 1674 they were at Green 
Bay, and assisted Father Marquette on his way from the mis- 
sion of St. Francis Xavier at that place to the "Chicagou" port- 
age. Subsequently we find them in great force in the vicinity 
of Mackinaw, whence they made large portions of Michigan 
and also Wisconsin their hunting grounds. Later they took 
possession of the country around Chicago, and also the im- 
mense plains lying in Illinois west of the Wabash river. It 
was during this period that they made the attack on the troops 



110 



POTTAWATTOMIES. 



who had evacuated Fort Dearborn in 1812, as told in fore- 
going pages. They were the last native tribe to take their 
departure from Illinois, lingering around Chicago till 1835, at 
which time they were removed west by Colonel J. B. F. Rus- 




SACS AND FOXES. Ill 

sell, as per the provisions of a treaty held with them in Chicago 
September 26th, 1833. They are now in the Indian Territory, 
many of them being wealthy farmers. Their youth are edu- 
cated at good schools, and are ambitious to rise in the world. 

THE SACS AND FOXES. 

According to Monette this tribe was early located on the 
Detroit river, whence they were driven to Green Bay. From 
the latter place they went to the Mississippi river and occu- 
pied the territory on both sides of it above the mouth of Rock 
river soon after the year 1700. In foregoing pages a brief 
sketch of their history has been given as a record of the Sauk 
war during Governor Reynolds' administration. 

THE WINNEBAGOS AND SHAWNEES. 

Both of these tribes have occupied small portions of Illi- 
nois for a few years. Their history is unimportant in connec- 
tion with that of Illinois. 

THE KICEA.POOS. 

The records of this tribe run back to the first occupation of 
the St. Lawrence valley by the French, Champlain having 
come in contact with them on the banks of Lake Huron on 
his route of discovery. From that early date ever since they 
have been an untractable tribe, forming no lasting alliance 
with the French like many other tribes. They came to the 
Rock river prior to 1718, says Charlevoix, and in 1765 had 
occupied the large portions of the state shown on the map of 
the Indian tribes of the same date. In 1812 their hunting 
grounds had diminished but little in size, but had moved so 
as to occupy the extreme southeastern portions of the state. 
They ceded all their lands in Illinois to the United States by 
a treaty held at Edwardsville in 1819. Many of them had 
gone westward soon after the war of 1812, and after this 
treaty the remnant left. They are still a brave people, hang- 
ing about the Mexican border, but greatly reduced in numbers. 



112 FRENCH OCCUPATION. 



CHAPTEE XII. 



SETTLEMENT OF ILLINOIS. 

BY J. GILLESPIE. 

It is difficult to draw a distinct line of demarcation between 
the different epochs, that is the French, the Pioneer, and the 
permanent settler's. They run into each other and become to 
a considerable extent blended, still in order to present a record 
of the early history of this state, they must be regarded as 
distinct eras. The object of the settlement of the French here 
was two-fold, one was, to extend the theatre of church opera- 
tions, the other was for commercial purposes. The first ad- 
venturers were Ecclesiastical dignitaries, and they located 
missions wherever they went, Kaskaskia was the centre of 
their field in this region. Afterward the government of affairs 
was placed under Crozat and the Company of fhe Indies — to 
subserve the commercial purposes. The people who were sent 
out were used as auxiliaries to these ends. They were located 
in villages to which were attached common fields of several 
miles extent, and each settler had his strip or arpent of land for 
cultivation which was somewhat like a mathematical line, all 
length and no breadth. The residences of these settlers were 
clustered in the village within sound of the church bell or the 
violin of the musician. When these communities became over- 
crowded a new colony was established similar to the first, and 
so on. The control of affairs was entirely in the hands of the 
ecclesiastics. All marriages were authorized and solemnized by 
them. All entrances into, and exits from this world were 
under their peculiar supervision. Conveyances of property 



ECCLESIASTICAL EULE. 113 

and settlements of controversies, were noted by and effected 
through their instrumentality. Grants of land and the regu- 
lations for their subdivision were ostensibly made by the King 
of France. But the real power was in the hands of the priest- 
hood, but it seems to have been exercised by them with scru- 
pulous regard to justice and to the satisfaction of the people. 
These people through the influence of the church and their 
natural amiability were kept on good terms with the Abori- 
gines. They had no amibition to found an empire, but were 
willing to live and die as Frenchmen in the service of their 
religious teachers. They had no desire for change. The 
country afforded them all they needed in the way of subsist- 
ence, and their civil and religious government was all they 
desired, but their hearts were in la belle France. The French 
colonies were mere municipalities, and they did not consider 
themselves as Americans, but as Frenchmen residing on this 
side of the Atlantic. This was the first stage of European 
settlement in the valley of the # Mississippi. In 1763, the 
French possessions were ceded to England, but at that time no 
attempt had been made to establish English settlements on the 
great river. During the revolutionary war, the expedition of 
Gen. George Rogers Clark was fitted out by Virginia and 
succeeded in wresting these French settlements from England. 
The conquest of the country, so far as the French people were 
concerned, was an easy task. The English military com- 
mandants had made themselves exceedingly obnoxious, and 
any change was looked upon by the people as for the better. 
It is true a considerable number of the French crossed the 
river into Spanish territory and settled in St. Genevieve, Co- 
rondolet and St. Louis. The government of Virginia could 
not pay her troops in money and she provided that the soldiers 
under Clark should each be entitled to a tract of land in the 
conquered country in payment for their services. The country 
being rich beyond anything they had ever thought of, most of 
them settled here upon their lands, and they were followed by 



114 THE AMERICAN SETTLER. 

their acquaintances who likewise settled in the country. The 
troops under Clark, although in the service of Virginia, were 
nevertheless gathered up about the Falls of the Ohio where 
Louisville now stands, and were composed of Virginians, 
Kentuckians, Tennesseans, North and South Carolinians, and 
the people who followed them were from those states. These 
people differed toto ceolo from the French. They considered 
themselves as Americans, and hardly knew that they were de- 
scended from English stock. They were Indian haters and 
Indian fighters, and had fewer compunctions of conscience for 
killing an Indian than they would have for killing a wolf. 
They were not contented with a narrow strip of land in a 
common field like the Frenchman. Nothing less than a big 
farm isolated from neighbors would suit them. They cared 
nothing for the protection or company that villages afforded, 
each man generally depended upon himself and his trusty rifle 
for protection. It is true they assembled in squads to pursue 
Indian marauders, but generally they lived in solitude, except 
their families; they possessed greater individuality than any 
people on earth. These American settlers recognized no au- 
thority but that of law, and if they were beyond its reach they 
made it for the occasion. They had their regulating societies 
for punishing law breakers, before whom every offender was 
brought and duly charged, and no man was punished without 
having an opportunity of being confronted with the witnesses 
against him, and presenting his defense, if he had any. Gen- 
erally he had a patient hearing and an impartial decision. 
These people had no priests like the French to expound the 
laws, they were natural government makers. Any one of them 
might be called upon to preside over the deliberations of one 
of these regulating companies. As soon as government was ex- 
tended over them they settled down into law-abiding citizens. 
In 1783, Virginia ceded her rights in the northwestern terri- 
tory to the United States, stipulating for the preservation of 
the rights of the old French inhabitants, and of her soldiers 



LAND TITLES. 115 

under Clark, which the government scrupulously carried out 
and for the purpose of inviting settlers an act of congress was 
passed giving to heads of families, who should settle in the 
country and reside a certain length of time, a tract of land. 
When the country was surveyed there were three classes of 
titles to lands, the location of which was not accurately known 
to-wit: the old French claims, then the military rights under 
the Virginia regime, and lastly head rights under the 
act of congress. The government of the United States after 
the survey of the lands directed the land officers at Kaskaskia 
to take proof and make report as to the location of the above 
claims, and they appear as claims and surveys in our records 
as confirmed by congress to the settlers or their assignees, and 
are principally situated in the counties of Madison, St. Clair, 
Monroe, Randolph and Peoria. The early American emi- 
grants located generally in the neighborhood of the French 
settlements which extended along the river from Kaskaskia to 
Cahokia, and the big mound in Madison. The southern part 
of Illinois was first settled by the Americans, as the current 
set in from the southwestern states. People generally emi- 
grate upon the parallel of latitude in which they are raised as 
nearly as practicable. The emigration from the slave states 
extended about as far north as the latitude of Springfield, the 
wealthier going north and the poorer keeping down south. 
The Americans I have been speaking of I would class as the 
Pioneers, although a large majority of them became perma- 
nent settlers. A great many of these people left the south to 
get rid of slavery, but many favored the institution and wished 
to see it introduced here. The state could not be admitted 
into the Union with a constitution repugnant to the ordinance 
of 1787, which forever prohibited it in the northwestern terri- 
tory, but many believed that after the admission the constitu- 
tion could be changed and slavery admitted, and as the settlers 
were mostly from the south it was thought a majority would 
favor it. In 1823, a terrific effort was made to adopt a slavery 



116 ANTI-SLAVERY ISSUE. 

constitution, but it was signally defeated by southern people. 
Here, in 1823, the great battle of slavery was fought and won 
by people from the slave states. If Illinois had then enlisted 
under the pro-slavery banner Indiana would have followed suit, 
and these two states (or even Illinois) on the side of the south 
at the breaking out of the rebellion would have made the 
result, to say the least of it, doubtful. All honor to the men 
who defeated slavery here in 1823. They builded more wisely 
than they knew. About 1830 the current of emigration began 
to set in from the northern states to northern Illinois. Since 
then the history is known to all men, and I need say nothing 
about it. I have endeavored to distinguish the epochs in the 
history of our state into the French, the Pioneer, and the 
permanent — three distinct eras especially as to social condi- 
tions which may with no impropriety be called the childhood, 
the youth, and the manhood of our state. 



LEGISLATURES. 117 



LEGISLATURES OF ILLINOIS. 



First Territorial Legislature, 1812. Convened at Kaskaskia the 25th day 
of November, A. D. 1812 ; adjourned the 26th day of December, 1812. 
Second session convened and adjourned November 8, A. D. 1813. 

Second Territorial Legislature, 1814. First session convened at Kaskaskia 
the 14th day of November, A. D. 1814 ; adjourned December 24, A D. 1814. 

Second Territorial Legislature, 1815. Second session convened pursu- 
ant to adjournment the 4th day of December, A. D. 1815 ; adjourned Janu- 
ary 11, A. D. 1816. 

Third Territorial Legislature, 1816-17. First session convened at Kaskas- 
kia the 2d day of December, A, D. 1816 ; adjourned January 14, A. D. 1817. 

Third Territorial Legislature, 1817-18. Second session convened at Kaskas- 
kia the 1st day of December, A. D. 1817 ; adjourned January 12, A. D. 1818, 

First General Assembly, 1818-20. First session convened at Kaskaskia 
October 5, 1818 ; adjourned October 13, 1818. Second session convened at 
Kaskaskia, January 4, 1819 ; adjourned March 31, 1819. 

Second General Assembly, 1820-22. Convened at Vandalia December 4, 
1820 ; adjourned February 15, 1821. 

Third General Assembly, 1822-24. Convened at Vandalia December 2, 
1822 ; adjourned February 18, 1823. 

Fourth General Assembly, 1824-26. First session convened at Vandalia 
November 15, 1824 ; adjourned January 18, 1825. Second session convened 
at Vandalia January 2, 1826; adjourned January 28, 1826. 

Fifth General Assembly, 1826-28. Convened at Vandalia December 4, 
1826 ; adjourned February 19, 1827. 

Sixth General Assembly, 1828-30. Convened at Vandalia December 1, 
1828 ; adjourned January 23, 1829. 

Seventh General Assembly, 1830-32. Convened at Vandalia December 6, 
1830; adjourned February 16, 1831. 

Eighth General Assembly, 1832-34. Convened at Vandalia December 3, 
1832 ; adjourned March 2, 1833. 

Ninth General Assembly, 1834-36. First session convened at Vandalia 
December 1, 1834 ; adjourned February 13, 1835. Second session convened 
at Vandalia December 7, 1835 ; adjourned January 18, 1836. 



118 LEGISLATURES. 

Tenth General Assembly, 1836-38. First session convened at Vandalia 
December 5, 1836 ; adjourned March 6, 1837. Second session convened at 
Vandalia July 10, 1837 : adjourned July 22, 1837. 

Eleventh General Assembly, 1838-40. First session convened at Van- 
dalia December 3, 1838 ; adjourned March 4, 1839. Second session con- 
vened at Springfield December 9, 1839 ; adjourned February 3, 1840. 

Twelfth General Assembly, 1840-42. First session convened at Spring- 
field November 23, 1840 ; adjourned December 5, 1840. Second session 
convened December 7, 1840 ; adjourned March 1. 1841. 

Thirteenth General Assembly, 1842-44. Convened at Springfield Decem- 
ber 5, 1842 ; adjourned March 6, 1843. 

Fourteenth General Assembly, 1844-46. Convened at Springfield Decem- 
ber 2, 1844 ; adjourned March 3, 1845. 

Fifteenth General Assembly, 1846-48. Convened at Springfield Decem- 
ber 7, 1846 ; adjourned March 1, 1847. 

Sixteenth General Assembly, 1848-50. First session convened at Spring- 
field January 1, 1849 ; adjourned February 12, 1849. Second session con- 
vened October 22, 1849 ; adjourned November 7, 1849. 

Seventeenth General Assembly, 1850-52. First session convened at 
Springfield January 6, 1851 ; adjourned February 17, 1851. Second session 
convened June 7, 1852 ; adjourned June 23, 1852. 

Eighteenth General Assembly, 1852-54. First session convened at Spring- 
field January 3, 1853 , adjourned February 14, 1853. Second session con- 
vened February 9, 1854 ; adjourned March 4, 1854. 

Nineteenth General Assembly, 1854-56. Convened at Springfield Januarj- 
1, 1855 ; adjourned February 15, 1855. 

Twentieth General Assembly, 1856-58. Convened at Springfield January 
5, 1857 ; adjourned February 19, 1857. 

Twenty-first General Assembly, 1858-60. Convened at Springfield Janu- 
arys, 1859 ; adjourned February 24, 2859 

Twenty-second General Assembly, 1860-62. First session convened at 
Springfield January 7, 1862 ; adjourned February 22, 1861. Second session 
convened April 23, 1861 ; adjourned May 3, 1861. 

Twenty-third General Assembly, 1862-64. Convened at Springfield Janu- 
ary 5, 1863 ; adjourned February 14, 1863, till June 2, 1863 ; prorogued by 
the Governor June 10, 2863, until December 31, 1864 ; convened and ad- 
journed December 31, 1864. 

Twenty-fourth General Assembly, 1864-66. Convened at Springfield 
January 2, 1865 ; adjourned February 16, 1865. 

Twenty-fifth General Assembly, 1866-68. First session convened at 
Springfield January 7, 1867 ; adjourned February 28, 1867. Second session 
convened June 11, 1867 ; adjourned June 13, 1867. Third session convened 
June 14, 1867 ; adjourned June 28, 1867. 



LEGISLATURES. 119 

Twenty-sixth General Assembly, 1868-70. Convened at Springfield Janu- 
ary 4, 1869 ; adjourned April 20. 1869. 

Twenty-seventh General Assembly, 1870-72. First session convened at 
Springfield January 4, 1871 ; adjourned April 17, 187J, until November 15, 
1871. First special session convened May 24, 1871 ; adjourned June 22, 
1871. Second special session convened October 13, 1871 ; adjourned Octo- 
ber 24, 1871. Convened in regular adjourned session November 15, 1871 ; 
adjourned sine die April 9, 1872. 

Twenty-eighth General Assembly, 1872-74. First session convened at 
Springfield January 8, 1873 ; adjourned May 6, 1873, until January 8, 1874. 
Convened in adjourned session January 8, 1874 ; adjourned sine die March 
31, 1874. 

Twenty-ninth General Assembly, 1874-76. Convened at Springfield 
January 6, 1875 ; adjourned sine die April 15, 1875. 

Thirtieth General Assembly, 1876-78. Convened at Springfield January 
3, 1877 ; adjourned May 24, 1877. 

Thirty-first General Assembly, 1878-80. Convened at Springfield January 
8, 1879 ; adjourned May 31, 1879. 

Thirty-second General Assembly, 1880-82. Regular session convened at 
Springfield January 5, 1881 ; adjourned May 30, 1881. Special session con- 
vened at Springfield March 23, 1882 ; adjourned May 9, 1882. 

Thirty-third General Assembly, 1882-84. Convened at Springfield Janu- 
ary 3, 1883. 



TERRITORIAL REPRESENTATIVES. 

Shadrach Bond was the first delegate to Congress from the territory, serv- 
ing in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Congresses. He took his seat at the 
second session of the Twelfth Congress, December 3, 1812, and served until 
October 3, 1814, when he was appointed Receiver of Public Moneys. Resi- 
dence, Kaskaskia. 

Benjamin Stephenson succeeded Bond, and took his seat at the third ses- 
sion of the Thirteenth Congress, November 14, 1814, and served during the 
third session of the Thirteenth and first session of the Fourteenth Con- 
gresses, when he was also appointed Receiver of Public Moneys April 29, 
1816. Residence, Edwardsville 

Nathaniel Pope. was elected the successor of Benjamin Stephenson, and 
entered Congress at the second session of the Fourteenth Congress, Decem- 
ber 2, 1816, and served during that session and the first session of the Fif- 
teenth Congress — he being the delegate at the time of the admission of the 
territory as a state. Residence, Kaskaskia. 



120 



UNITED STATES SENATORS. 



SENATORS. 



Name. 



Ninian Edwards. . . 
Jesse B. Thomas.. 

Ninian Edwards 

Jesse B. Thomas . . 

John McLean 

Elias Kent Kane... 
John McLean 

David J. Baker.. ^ 
JohnM. Robinson. 
Elias Kent Kane... 

JohnM. Robinson. 
Wm. L. D. Ewing. . 
Rieh'd M. Young... 
Sam'l McRoberts.. 



Sidney Breese.. 
James Semple. 



Stephen A. Douglas 

James Shields 

Stephen A. Douglas 
Lyman Trumbull. 
Stephen A. Douglas 

Lyman Trumbull . 
Orville H. Browning 

Wm. A. Richardson 

Richard Yates 

Lyman Trumbull.. 

John A. Logan 

Richard J. Oglesby. 

David Davis 

John A. Logan 

Shelby M. Oullom.. 



Term of 
service. 



1818-19.... 
1818-23.... 
1819-24.... 
1823-29.... 
1824-25.... 
1825-31 .... 
1829-30.... 
Nov. 12 to 
Dec. 11, 1830 
1830-35. . 
1831-35.. 



1835-11. 
1835-37. 
1837-13. 
1841-43. 

1843-49. 
1843-47. 

1847-53. 
is v.i 55. 
1853 56. 
1855-61. 
1859-61. 



1861-67. 
1861-63. 

1863-65. 

1865-71 . 
1807-73. 
1871-77. 
1873-79. 
1877-83. 
1ST!) ,S5. 
1883-80. 



Residence. 



Kaskaskia — 

Kaskaskia 

Edwardsville.. 
Ed wards ville.. 
Shawneetown. 
Kaskaskia. . .. 
Shawneetown. 

f Kaskaskia. . 

Carmi 

Kaskaskia — 



Carmi 

Vandalia . . 
Jonesboro. 
Waterloo . . 



Carlyle . 
Alton . . . 



Quincy 

Springfield 

Chicago 

Belleville... 
Chicago.... 



Chicago 
Quincy . 



Quincy 

Jacksonville. . 

Chicago 

Chicago 

Decatur 

Bloomington . 

Chicago 

Springfield . . 



Remarks. 



His own successor. Resigned 1824. 
His own successor. 
Vice Edwards, resigned. 
To succeed McLean. 

Died , 1830. 

Appointed by Gov. Edwards to succeed 

McLean. 
Elected to succeed McLean. 
His own successor. Died December 12, 

1835. 
His own successor. 
Vice Kane, deceased. 
To succeed Ewing. 
To succeed Robinson. Died March 22, 

1843. 
To succeed Young. 
Appointed by Gov. Ford to succeed 

McRoberts, deceased. 
To succeed Semple. 
To succeed Breese. 
His own successor. 
To succeed Shields. 
His own successor. Died June 3, 

1861. 
His own successor. 
Appointed bv Gov. Yates to succeed 

Douglas, April 26, 1861. 
Elected to succeed Browning for unex- 
pired term of Douglas. 
To succeed Richardson. 
His own successor. 
To succeed Yates. 
To succeed Trumbull. 
To succeed Logan. 
To succeed Oglesby. 
To succeed Davis. 



Each state, whether large or small, is represented in the United States 
Senate by two Senators, to be chosen by the legislature of the states. The 
term of a Senator is six years. 



NOTES EXPLAINING THE MAP. 121 



NOTES EXPLAINING THE MAR 



The route of Marquette and Joliet is a heavy dotted line 
down the Mississippi river and up the Illinois and Desplaines 
rivers, thence to the " Chicagon " portage and down the west 
shore of Lake Michigan, which was at that time called Lake 
Illinois, after the native tribes of the country. 

The route of La Salle is a heavy dotted line down the Kan- 
kakee, the Illinois and the Mississippi rivers. The Illinois 
river was first named the Seignelay river, after the French 
colonial minister. 

The old Peoria villages at the mouth of the Des Moines 
river, Iowa, are connected with the Kaskaskia villages near 
the bend of the Illinois river by a trail. This trail was put 
on a reprint of Thevenot's map, inserted in Spark's " History 
of Marquette " and Joliet's " Discoveries " as the line of their 
return, but Parkman claims that it was an error, and it is now 
conceded by all historians who have written on the subject 
that their return was up the Illinois from its mouth, as shown 
on the map herewith. But the route across the country, 
though evidently not the one traveled by the discoverers, was 
doubtless an old Indian path on a direct line of communica- 
tion from the Mississippi to the Chicago portage. 

The Kaskaskia and Detroit trail connected the two places 
by an overland route soon after white settlements had begun 
at each. Detroit was settled in 1701 — one year later than 
Kaskaskia. 

The trail of George Rogers Clark from Fort Massac to 
Kaskaskia marks an epoch in American history of transcend- 



122 NOTES EXPLAINING THE MAP. 

ent import. It passed close by the present site of Marion, 
and afterwards became a well-frequented trail between Golconda 
and Kaskaskia, but its route was improved by Mr. Worthen in 
1821, as shown on the map. Clark's route from Kaskaskia to 
Yincennes the next year, 1779, followed a path through the 
country which had been traveled before most of the way, as a 
connecting road between the distant French settlements at 
Yincennes, made about 1710, and the French villages of Illi- 
nois. 

The trails centering at Danville show this place to have 
been a great metropolis of the natives, especially in the days 
of Kickapoo occupation of the country. One of these trails 
was made by Gurdon S. Hubbard (a present well-known citi- 
zen of Chicago), to facilitate Indian trade. Another was made 
by Mr. Beckwith (an early settler at Danville) for a similar 
purpose. 

Governor Edwards' route from Camp Russell to the vicin- 
ity of Peoria was the line of his invasion of the Indian 
country in 1812. 

The route of Hopkins, leading from Fort Harrison, on the 
Wabash, into Livingston county, was also a raid into the In- 
dian country at the same date. 

General Howard's route the next year, 1813, from Camp 
Russell up the Mississippi to the present site of Nauvoo, 
thence east to the Illinois river, and up its west bank to Peoria 
and Gomos village, also shows a track of invasion into the 
Indian country. 

The Fort Clark and Wabash trail was a well-traveled road 
from the settlements of Southern Ohio and Indiana to Fort 
Clark in the early day. 

The Sauk trail, leading from Rock Island eastwardly 
through the state, was the path of the Sauks and Foxes from 
their great village on the Mississippi to Maiden, in Canada, to 
which place the whole tribe went every year to get their an- 
nuities from the English government. Portions of it are still 



NOTES EXPLAINING THE MAP 123 

visible on the prairies, says Mr. C. C. P. Holden, of Chi- 
cago, who has assisted the author in locating it. 

James Watson Webb's line of travel from Fort Dearborn, 
in 1822, to La Sallier's trading post, thence to the Mississippi, 
and down it to Fort Armstrong on Rock Island, is a monu- 
ment of the courage and hardihood of this young man, who 
was then an officer in Fort Dearborn. He made this trip 
alone, in the dead of winter, to warn the garrison against an 
Indian surprise, and this saved the fort. On his return, as a 
prudential measure, he took a more southern route, as shown 
in the map.* 

Kellogg } s trail shows the first overland route from Peoria 
to Galena. It was made by Mr. Kellogg, an old pioneer 
settler, in 1825, and subsequently became a well-known route. 

Black Hawk's advance is a dotted line up Rock river, 
which terminated in the Black Hawk war of 1832. 

Scotfs army trail from Fort Dearborn to the Winnebago 
village where Rock river crosses the Wisconsin line, thence 
down the river to Rock Island, was the route of his army who 
came to Illinois to defend the settlers from the hostile Sauks, 
of whom Black Hawk was chief. 

The foregoing trails show the first known lines of travel in 
the state. The early roads made by the settler are shown by 
two parallel lines connecting the chief towns of the early day. 
The early points settled are located and dotted, making no 
further explanation necessary. 

The Tablet of Illinois History begins in a decade, the 
first part of which was pre-historic as to Illinois. The 
Tablet runs through the last part of the seventeenth cen- 
tury, through the eighteenth entire, and as far as time has 
advanced in the nineteenth, showing a chronological chain 
of events in and allied to Illinois history subdivided into 
decades. 

*Mr. Webb is still living in New York, and it is from his own letters to 
the writer that the above facts have been obtained. 



124 NOTES EXPLAINING THE MAP. 

The progress of settleinents in Illinois is shown in a small 
map in the margin, by summarizing periods of time respecting 
the settlement of various localities in the state. 

The Book is a detail of not only the historical illustrations 
of the maps, but a detail of what grew out of the events thus 
localized and dated. The two together are designed to bring 
geography and chronology to the support of history. 



INDEX. 



125 



INDEX. 



Anti-Slavery Issue 59-115-116 

Alexander, Gen. Milton K 65 

Algonquin, meaning of name. . . 93 

Alouez Claude 27 

Appanoose, meaning of the name. 93 
Ashkum, meaning of the name. . 93 

Atkinson Genera] 65 

Attorney General, duties of 80 

Aranda, Count de 44 

Auditor of State, duties of 80 

Beveridge, John L., Governor. . 74 

Birney, James G 68 

Bissell, Wm. H., elected Gov- 
ernor 71 

Black Hawk defeats Taylor 56 

Leaves his Village 61 

Returns to Blinois 61 

Defeats Stillman. 63 

Attacks Apple River 64 

Is Defeated at Bad Ax 65 

Sent to Fortress Monroe 66 

Restored to his Tribe 66 

Black Partridge saves Mrs. Helm 53 
Bond Shadrach settles in Illinois 45 

First Governor 57 

Boundary line between French 

and English 30 

Brady, General 65 

British withdraw from the Lake 
Country 56 

Cahokia 27 

Taken by Clark 41 

Carlin, Thomas, elected Gov- 
ernor 67 

Camp Russell 55 

Casey, Zadoc 60-66 

Cartier, Jacques 10 

Cayuga, meaning of the name. .. 93 
Chebanse, meaning of the name.. 93 

Chartres Fort built 28 

Seat of English Government . 36 
Chemung, meaning of the name. . 93 



Chicago surveyed 90 

Chartered as a City 90 

Great Fire at 90 

Meaning of the name 93 

(See Dearborn Ft. for early history.) 

City Officers 82 

Champlin, Samuel de 11 

Clark Fort built 55 

Clark, George R., takes Kas- 

kaskia 39 

Advances on Vincennes 42 

His route in Illinois 121 

Coles, Edward, elected Governor 58 
His efforts to make Illinois a 

Free State 59 

Commercial rivalry between 

French and English 33 

Commerce of Illinois 84 

Constitution of Illinois formed. . 57 
Constitutional Conventions. . .70-73 
Convention and adjournment of 

Legislatures 117 

Continental Congress 38 

Crogan, Geo 33 

Taken prisoner 34 

Reports to Sir Wm. Johnson. . 35 

County Officers 82 

Cnmmings, Colonel 65 

Craig, Captain, takes Peoria. ... 54 
Cullom. Shelby M., elected Gov- 
ernor 74 

Danville — Trails centering at. . .122 

Dearborn Fort built 89 

Massacre at 89 

Rebuilt 90 

Detroit besieged by Pontiac 31 

General Hull sent to 51 

Dongan, Governor of New York. 25 
Duncan, Joseph, elected Gov- 
ernor of Illinois 66 

Dunmore, Lord 37 

Douglas, Stephen A 71 

Earthquake of 1811 94 



126 



INDEX. 



Edwards, Ninian, Governor of 

Illinois Territory 48-59 

Invades the Indian country. . . 54 
Elected Governor of the State. 59 

His route of invasion 122 

Edwardsville 53 

English Colonies 29 

English Indian Agents 38 

English posssssion of Illinois. . . 31 

Elections 76 

Emigration first to Illinois 115 

Executive Department 78 

How constituted 79 

Duties of 79 

Ewing, L. D., Governor 66 

Fort Clark and "Wabash trail 122 

Frazier, Major 33 

Becomes Governor of Illinois. 35 

French and Indian war 30 

French, Augustus C, elected 

Governor - 70 

French Missionaries 11 

Frontenac, Governor of Canada. 11 
Five Nations. (See Iroquois.) 
Ford, Thomas, elected Governor. 68 
Forsythe redeems Indian captives 53 

Fort Creve Cceur 20 

Fur trade 25 

Gage, Fort .••• 39 

Gage, General, his proclamation 35 

Gaines, General 61 

General Assembly of Illinois 77 

Geneseo, meaning of its name. . 98 

Ghent, Negotiations at 56 

Gibault, M 40 

Gomas Village destroyed 59 

Government, Powers of 76 

Governor Clark takes Prairie du 

Chien....- 56 

Governor, Duties of 79 

Gravier, James 27 

Green Bay, Mission at 12 

Griffin, the 19 

Hamilton, Henry surrenders Vin- 

cennes to Clark 43 

Hamilton, John M., Governor.. . 75 
Harrison, Wm. Henry, Governor 

of Indiana Territory 47 

Appointed to the command of 

the Northwest 53 

Helm, Captain 41-42 

Helm, Mrs., at the Chicago Mas- 
sacre 53 

Henry. James D 65 

Hopkins, Gen., marches against 
the Indians 53 



Howard, General, his route of 
invasion 122 

Hull, General, sent io Detroit. . . 51 
Sends orders to Fort Dearborn 52 

Illinois, Settlement of 45-112 

Illinois Territory organized 48 

Illinois, meaning of its name.... 99 
Illinois admitted in the Union. . . 57 

Illinois and Michigan Canal 68 

Illinois Tribes 13 

Illinois Tribes, their history 103 

Immaculate Conception, mis- 
sion of 16-27 

Indian Department of Illinois. . 38 

Indian Names of Illinois 93 

Indiana Territory 47 

Institutions, charitable, penal, 

etc., enumerated 74 

Iroquois Tribes 24-25 

Iroquois, Derivation of the 
name 98 

Jamestown 9 

Johnson, Sir "William 33 

Joliet (See Marquette.) 

Judicial Department 81 

Kaskaskia 14-27-39-40-44 

Kaskaskia under English rule. . .112 

Kaskaskia and Detroit trail 121 

Kellogg's trail 123 

Kewanee, meaning of its name. .100 

Keokuk 60 

Kickapoos, their history Ill 

Kickapoo, meaning of the name. . 100 
Kishwaukee, meaning of the 

name 100 

Kidd, Robert 45 

La Barre, Governor of Canada.. 25 

La Fayette in Illinois 59 

Land titles, French 115 

La Salle, his route of discoverv. .121 
(See Griffin.) 

Legislative Department 76 

Powers and duties of 77 

Restriction of 78 

Lieutenant Governor, duties of. . 79 

Lincoln, Abraham 71 

Death of 73 

Loftus, Major .... 32 

Louisiana purchased by Spain. . 84 

Manito, meaning of the name. . .100 

Map of native tribes, 1684 103 

Map of native tribes, 1765 108 

Map of native tribes, 1812 110 



INDEX. 



127 



Massac Fort 39 

Massacre at Chicago 52 

Marquette and J oliet discover the 

Mississippi 12 

Discover Chicago 15 

Marquette winters at Chicago. . . 16 
Founds mission on the Illinois. 16 

His dea h 16 

Discovery of his remains 18 

Marquette and Joliet's route 121 

Mascoutah meaning of the name. 100 
Matteson, Joel A., elected Gov- 
ernor 70 

Menard, Pierre 57 

Miamis, their history 106 

Michigan Territory 48 

Mexican War 69 

Moawequa, meaning of the 

name 100 

Mokena, meaning of the name. .100 

Moore, John 68 

Morgan, Colonel Geo 38 

Mississippi river made western 

boundary 44 

Its navigation closed by Spain. 85 
Moccasin, meaning of the name. . 100 

Montbrun, Timothy 45 

Mormons, the 69 

Native Tribes classified 102 

Neoga, meaning of the name. . .100 

N w Design settlement 45 

Nokomis, meaning of the name. . 100 

Northern C oss Railroad 68 

Nunda, meaning of the name. . . 100 

Oglesby, Richard J., elected Gov- 
ernor 73 

Ohio Company 29 

Oquaka, meaning of the name.. .100 
Osage, meaning of the name... .100 
Oswego, meaning of its name . . . 100 
Ottawa, derivation of its name... 100 

Palmer, John M., elected Gov- 
ernor 78 

Peace of Paris 43 

Peoria taken by Craig 55 

Peotone, meaning of the name. .100 

Perry, Commodore . 56 

Pinet, Francis 27 

Pioneers, American 114 

Pittsburg 29 

Pontiac 31-32-34 

Portage at Chicago 19 

Portage at St. Joseph 20 



Pope, Nathaniel 57 

Pottawattomies, their history. ..109 

Posey, Alexander 65 

Public Land Surveys 46 

Quebec Bill 36-44 

Railroads, pioneer 86 

Renault, Philip Francis 58 

Representatives, Territorial 119 

Reynolds, John, elected Governor 67 

Rocheblave, Governor 30 

Rogers, John 42 

Rogers, Major Robert 30 

Russell, Colonel 53 

Rutherford, Larkin 45 

Sacs and Foxes, their history. . . .111 

Sackville, Fort 43 

Sauk trail 122 

Schools, law for support of 71 

Scott, General AVinfield 63-66 

Trail of his army 123 

Secretary of State, duties of . . . . 80 

Senators, U. S 120 

Settlements 124 

Shawneese, the Ill 

Somonauk, meaning of the 

name 100 

St. Ange 32-34-36 

St. Louis, Fort 24 

St. Clair, Arthur 47 

St. Clair, first county in Illinois. 47 

Shabena 63 

Shelby, Governor of Kentucky. 53 

Slaves in Illinois 58 

State Bank chartered 67 

State Board of Equalization. ... 81 
State internal improvements. ... 67 

Starved Rock 24 

Sterling, Captain 35 

Street, General 65 

Superintendent of Public In- 
struction .... 80 

Tablet of History 123 

Tamaroa, mission at 27 

T'lylor, Z , repulsed 56 

Tenure of office 81 

Thevenot's map 18 

Thomas, Jesse B 57 

Tippecanoe, battle of 50 

Todd, John, Governor of Illinois 44 

Tonty 19-21-23-24 

Tonica, meaning of the name.. .100 

Township officers 82 

Trunk lines of railroad 88 

Tuscola, meaning of the name. . . 100 



128 



INDEX. 



Vandalia 58 

Vigo, Francis 42 

Yincennes 41-48 

Virginia cedes the Northwest to 
the United States 46 

Warof 1812 50 

Washington brothers 29 

Wapella, meaning of the name. .100 
Wauconda, meaning of the 

name 101 

Wells, Captain 53 

Washburne, E. B 71 



Waukegan — Derivation of its 

Name 101 

Western posts retained 51 

Webb, James Watson 123 

Wilkins, Colonel, Governor of 

llnnois. 36 

Whiteside, General 64 

Winnemac 52 

Winnebagos, the Ill 

Winetka, meaning of its name. .101 

Women eligible to office 83 

Wyanet, meaning of the name. . . 101 



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